Full House [Quick Read] (9 page)

Ronan still wasn’t sure. She was smiling and had tears in her eyes but that could mean anything.

‘So this means …?’ He stopped and waited.

‘It means I’m coming home, Ronan.’

Anthony was not a fusspot, he said, but really and truly the lads’ place was filthy. The bath had a black ring around it, and the kitchen was filled with the empty or nearly empty containers of takeaway food. If they missed bin night, which happened regularly, it meant that this rubbish could hang around for two weeks.

Anthony found himself filling black bags every Tuesday just to keep the place from becoming a fever pit. They were a great bunch of guys and there was music day and night. But there was also a lot of smoking, a lot of drinking and very late nights.

He remembered the clean kitchen back home in St Jarlath’s Crescent. When they had that lunch there with the roast lamb and things, it had all seemed like a high-class restaurant compared to where he was living now. And he was completely broke from buying food and drink. Amazingly, all the other lads had paid something at home. He never had. Maybe that’s why Mam had thrown them out.

He had a job two nights a week, collecting glasses in a pub. Not real money, but enough to pay something, if that’s what it was all about.

He needed to get his head clear.

It was hard to do with the fumes coming from the kitchen.

Helen found her party frock, and left a note for Mam on the kitchen table, thanking her again for the lovely Sunday lunch. Then she went and bought a bottle of champagne to take back to Maud and Marco’s.

As soon as she opened the door, she told them that she wanted to celebrate the fact that she wasn’t bankrupt and to ask them what they considered a fair rent for her stay. She didn’t get to the end of her sentence as they cried they had something to celebrate too. Maud’s twin brother Simon had come back for a visit.

And there he was, the boy she remembered from years back, but not serious and tense as he used to be. He was relaxed and tanned and … well … glorious.

‘Hello, Simon,’ she said, feeling that any minute she might faint.

‘Helen, you look terrific,’ he said, smiling at her.

Maud and Marco looked at each other in surprise.

It had actually happened. Simon had at last met a girl he was interested in. Even though it was their troubled, tight-fisted tenant, she
was
a girl …

Chapter Nine

Then everything began to move very quickly indeed.

Dee told Josie that it was like when they turned on fast forward in a video. People were running in and out of the house all the time. It was impossible to keep up.

Ronan came back from London with a great smile on his face and began to collect Rosie’s clothes from the rail in the back room. Dee watched while he lovingly packed Rosie’s shoes in boxes and her handbags into clear plastic bags. He asked Dee for lessons in ironing and watched gravely as she showed him how to position the collars.

‘There’s more to it than I thought,’ he said.

Dee actually felt that there was
less
to it than anyone thought, but wisely said nothing.

Ronan also asked her how to make a good casserole. ‘I want to spend quality time with Rosie in the kitchen,’ he said.

Again, Dee wondered why on earth he should want this, but patiently showed him how to make a few simple dishes. He was as grateful as if he had been given the deeds of a house.

Anthony asked her advice about clearing up a very dirty flat. Dee offered to go and help him on the premises, but he said no, if she did that once they would expect it all the time. So she listed some detergents and disinfectants as well as cleaning materials. She suggested that he get a few big buckets and line them with black bags and that he make a list of who did what.

‘They wouldn’t take any notice, Mam.’

‘Then you could live with different people maybe?’

‘I
like
them, Mam, we play great music – it’s just that they don’t seem to notice the state of the place. What do you think I should do?’

‘I know what you
should
do, which is what I told you already. Just once. Clean it, sort out the cleaning rota, and they could well be so pleased they’ll keep it that way.’

‘But you see, Mam—’ he began.

‘I know, Anthony, I know they might get annoyed with you … There might be a lot of fuss, it’s kind of easier to leave things the way they are.’

He was surprised that she understood. Then a thought came to him.

‘Was that the way it was with us, when we all lived here?’ he asked.

‘A bit like that, yes. Why disturb things? Anything for an easy life.’

‘And what changed it?’

‘I don’t know. Not any one thing. Just a feeling, you know, that it was
always
going to be like this. No milk in the fridge, no one doing anything, no one paying anything, and me getting more bitter and twisted every day. I had thought it would be different, a bit shinier somehow.’

‘Sorry, Mam.’

‘No, it was all my fault. And if you let those guys live in filth around you, then it’s
your
fault. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘What’s the best thing for burned saucepans, Mam?’ he asked.

‘Cooking over a low heat and taking the pan off on time,’ she said.

‘I mean the ones that are burned already,’ he said, sadly.

‘Wire wool and a scourer,’ Dee suggested.

Anthony listened as if this was divine wisdom.

‘You’re great, Mam,’ he said.

‘I am,’ Dee said happily. ‘That’s what I am, I’m great.’

Helen came back with all her clothes.

‘I don’t want my old room back, Mam,’ she said immediately.

‘No, indeed,’ Dee said.

‘But you
did
say something about the bed in the scullery—’

‘The back room,’ Dee corrected.

‘Yes, whatever. You
did
say that if we were ever stuck we could have a few nights there.’

‘And you are stuck?’ Dee enquired.

‘Not really, it’s just that I want Maud and Marco to have more space, and, you see, Maud’s brother Simon came home …’

‘You mentioned that all right,’ Dee said.

‘And I wouldn’t want him to think that I was … you know, settling in on them or anything.’

‘No, indeed.’ Dee nodded gravely. ‘Settling in on people would look bad all right.’

Something about the way she said it made Helen look at her mother’s face. She could find nothing to help her there, it made her slightly uneasy.

‘I mean, I wouldn’t exactly be settling in, when I sleep in the scullery,’ Helen said defensively.

‘Back room,’ Dee corrected automatically.

‘Er … yes of course, the back room,’ Helen said.

‘So how long will you need it for?’ Dee was perfectly polite, hospitable even, but there was certainly a time limit hovering in the air.

‘About a week if that’s all right.’

‘That should be fine. I’ll check with your dad.’

‘I’ll check,’ Helen offered.

Dad was out in his shed working on an old radio that was of huge sentimental value to someone in Miss Mason’s apartment block. He looked up, pleased, when he saw Helen.

‘Great to see you, love, and how are the little monsters?’

‘They’re not monsters, Dad, they’re great. Full of imagination and hopes and dreams. I love them.’

‘You’re great when you talk about teaching.’ Liam Nolan sounded genuinely admiring. ‘You’re a different person.’

‘Different from what?’ Helen wondered.

‘Well, you know, fussing and complaining about money and everything.’

‘It’s just I don’t have any money to speak of,’ Helen said.

‘None of us have any money to
speak
of, love, but we manage, and we don’t go on about it, you know.’

Helen was stunned.

Did she go on about it? No, of course she didn’t. It was just all that business about the travel agency.

Then she remembered something Marco had said about money recently and how Maud had changed the subject.

Rosie and Anthony had often accused her of being Miss Moneybox, but that was just the way families go on.

At school they used to make fun of her bringing in sandwiches instead of going out to the little pasta restaurant with the rest of them.

But Helen actually winced when she thought of Simon saying that he was sure Maud and Marco would be sorry to lose their lodger. He probably thought she paid rent.

She felt her face and neck reddening at the thought he might ever find out.

‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ she said sadly to her father.

‘It’s not important, Helen …’ He always hated any kind of tension. ‘I mean, that was all a misunderstanding in the past. You all know now what it costs to run a house and how your poor mother has been working way too hard to make life easy for everyone.’

‘Yes, Dad. And Dad, I was wondering if I could stay in the scullery – the back room – for a week from now, like …’

‘Your mother will deal that,’ he said.

‘She said she wanted to check with you first.’ Helen looked at him hopefully.

‘Well, I’m not sure exactly. I’m not great with figures and money, but there’s no way you should pay as much for the back room as for a proper bedroom. Will we say half of what Lily and Angela pay? Would that be all right? Is that fair?’

Helen swallowed. She was going to have to
pay
to stay in the scullery? Had the world gone mad? But she had to stay somewhere. And soon.

‘Of course, Dad, that sounds totally fair,’ she managed to say and let him get back to the elderly radio.

Ronan had flowers on the dining table, he had the casserole ready to put into the oven, and the salad already prepared in the fridge. He had ironed all Rosie’s dresses and hung them carefully in the bedroom so that she would notice how smooth and uncrushed they were. Then he went to the airport.

He had a speech ready but when she threw herself into his arms, he forgot the speech entirely.

‘Welcome home,’ was all he said.

In Anthony’s house, the musicians were staring in amazement at the kitchen. They wondered were they in the right house.

The kitchen was gleaming, and a big bin stood clean and lined, awaiting rubbish. Crockery and glasses were washed and put away. Surfaces were gleaming and bare. The sink was empty and shining.

Most menacing of all was a clipboard. There were four people in the house, so there were duties that had to be done every day. They needed discussing.

In order to lessen the shock, Anthony revealed that he had ordered fish and chips to be delivered later in the evening and worked out what each person should pay.

They were defiant at first. Anthony was turning out to be worse than their mothers, they said.

Then they saw the sense in it. They could even bring women home to a place as classy as this, they agreed.

The deal was done.

‘We will miss you,’ Marco said to Helen.

‘I want to settle up with you for my time here,’ Helen said. She tried to take the note of horror out of her voice. She hoped she did not look too pleading, too begging for them to say that she owed them nothing.

‘Let’s see, it was four weeks, wasn’t it?’ Marco said.

‘But mates’ rates,’ Maud insisted. ‘Not real money, just enough to cover a few things.’

They settled on a sum.

It was very reasonable for four weeks’ board and lodging, but if you had expected to pay nothing, like Helen had, it was fairly substantial. She smiled and chattered her way through it. Then Simon came in and said he would love to help her carry her things back to her house in St Jarlath’s Crescent.

‘It’s only temporary there,’ Helen said.

‘I know. Maybe you could get a flat in Chestnut Court. They’re very nice,’ Simon said.

‘They’re very expensive,’ Helen blurted out before she could help herself.

‘Well, between two they mightn’t be too bad,’ Simon said.

‘Two?’

‘Well, I can’t settle on Marco and Maud forever. I’ll need a place of my own too. We might share the experience. What do you think?’

‘What a great idea,’ Helen said with a big wide smile.

Dee made Simon very welcome. They talked about his grandmother Lizzie who lived down the road, and about his wonderful grandfather, Muttie, who had died and left a great ache in the street. They remembered Hooves the faithful dog who had died just hours before his master.

They got on very well, Helen noticed, easy and relaxed. Not tense like she had been with her mother. But she didn’t really concentrate on what they were saying.

Simon had asked her to share a flat with him.