LITMIR.BIZ

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A simple thank you will suffice.’

      ‘I’m not sure I feel gratitude,’ complained Molly. ‘I could be tucked up in bed with him in The Burlington, ordering room service and allowing him to give me a foot massage.’

      ‘Or you could have your hand jammed to your forehead moaning, “How could I? Have I no self-respect?”’

      ‘Now you’re confusing me with yourself, Helen. My self-respect would be one hundred per cent intact after a one-night stand with a South African too drunk to remember my name. Not everybody has taken your vow of chastity; some of us enjoy a straightforward lunge for the sheets.’

      ‘Fair enough. But if you’d stayed with the tourists you’d never have gone clubbing and met Gabriel Byrne showing some Hollywood types around with a view to using Dublin as the setting for a film they’re casting.’

      Molly managed a passable imitation of someone whose jaw was about to sweep the floor, sand and polish it for good measure. She gathered it up and demanded, ‘How could I have forgotten meeting Gabriel Byrne? It was the highlight of the evening. Didn’t he kiss my cheek? He must have taken a shine to me.’

      ‘It wasn’t spontaneous, Molly, you commanded him to – the poor man was only following orders.’

      ‘Ah, feck that, I gave him the opportunity for something he was panting to do all along. I’m a touch hazy on the details. He didn’t ask for my phone number, I suppose?’

      ‘Didn’t get a chance to, you thrust it at him. In fact you attempted to write it on his arm but the pen wouldn’t work.’

      ‘Never mind that. So my phone could ring at any minute with Gabriel Byrne on the line pleading with me to go for a drink with him. The day is acquiring a completely different complexion, Helen.’

      ‘If you say so.’

      ‘You don’t think there’s a fractional sliver of a chance that Gabriel Byrne might be intending to use my phone number?’

      ‘Not unless he has a photographic memory. I saw the drinks mat you scribbled it on lying under the table.’

      Molly was stoical. ‘Saves me jumping like a scalded cat every time the phone rings. Anyway, I prefer them taller.’

      ‘Your Geek is about his height.’

      ‘Greek. And these are exceptional circumstances. I always make allowances for men who can dance to bouzouki music. Now, will you watch The Age of Innocence with me or do you have to charge home and polish your brass?’

      ‘I don’t have any brass. But since I’ve seen The Age of Innocence eight billion times with you, give or take the odd million, I’ll pass. So I’ll adjourn to Sandycove and tackle the ironing, I feel the need for some repetitive action therapy.’

      ‘We can lay that on for you here, easy-peasy, Helen. My fabled reluctance to handle an iron doesn’t preclude me from allowing others to do so on my behalf.’

      ‘Molly Molloy.’ (‘Eek!’ squeaked Molly.) ‘I brought you bagels, I brought you milk, I brought you newspapers, I brought light into your murky life, I reminded you about groupying Gabriel Byrne, which inexplicably thrills you, I gave you the strength to propose dragging yourself from the breakfast bench to the sofa to watch a video. Surely you can expect no more of me.’

      ‘So you’re off then,’ said Molly. ‘Fancy the pictures on Friday?’

      ‘Suppose so, unless I have a better offer. Sick to death of Friday nights in the pub with the office crowd whingeing about the boss/how overworked they are/speculating on who’s emailing who with a view to some hands-on networking.’

      ‘Obviously if either of us gets a better offer all bets are off. So you can take it as read that if I’m waylaid by a Greek bearing gifts I’ll stand you up. Similarly, if you decide you can no longer ignore the attractions of Kevin at work, despite bravely denying yourself the chance of a snog with him at every Christmas party since you started at J. J. Patterson’s, I’ll be munching popcorn on my own.’

      ‘I thought we were never to trust Greeks bearing gifts.’

      ‘No, that’s Greeks cadging lifts. Gifts are fine, gifts are feckin’ brilliant, especially when it isn’t even Christmas or your birthday.’

      ‘Molly, this conversation is too silly, even for you. I’m off.’

      ‘Straight home now. No deviating for adventures without me.’

      The streetlights were already on; God, for the arrival of spring and a stretch to the evening. Helen climbed into the Golf and pointed it homewards. Except she didn’t want to go home. Without Patrick it wasn’t a home, it was an empty house. And it would be cold because she’d forgotten to set the central heater timer.

      Helen heard the radio chattering as she walked indoors; she’d exited the house in such a rush to meet Patrick she hadn’t turned it off. No harm; it would have acted as a burglar deterrent. It was tuned to a play about a young couple with a baby and as she brushed and hung up her coat, Helen cocked an ear. The man and woman were arguing but their quarrel was intercepted by the baby’s wails. The sound of its inarticulate protests catapulted her back in time almost three decades, to when she was a small girl woken by her infant brother.

      The baby’s squawks in the next room disturb Helen. She listens, marvelling at their ferocity, the howling blast of indignity issuing from such a diminutive form. She waits for her mother’s step on the stairs and the murmur of pacifying words but there’s no creak of floorboards. She nudges Geraldine beside her in the bed. She’s a year, a month and a day older than Helen; it’s up to her to halt the baby’s tears. But Geraldine mumbles, and rolls over in her sleep.

      Helen shuffles barefoot onto the landing and listens. The linoleum is freezing underfoot and she wriggles onto her tiptoes, hugging her hands around her body for warmth. She hears the familiar voices of her parents raised in argument, irascible sounds floating upwards from the kitchen.

      The baby is still sobbing but it’s a plaintive wail now, as though he no longer expects consolation. Helen tentatively pushes the partially opened door to her parents’ room. There’s an anticipatory shuffle in the cot and the baby turns his head towards the widening crack of light. He pauses mid-sob, as though considering his next move, then redoubles his efforts.

      She skips towards the cot whispering, ‘Hush, little man,’ mimicking her mother right down to the pitch of her voice. His crying eases off and he regards her with bulging-eyed curiosity. Through the bars Helen tracks a path along his tear-damp face, breathing in his milky scent layered with the acrid tang of urine. She casts around for a way to reach into him, spies the pink padded dressing-table stool and drags it across. The baby watches her, frowning faintly, as she balances precariously on the stool and delves into the cot.

      He’s more awkward to hold than she expects, heavier than when Mammy sits her down and gives her the baby to mind. But she clutches him tightly, digging her fingers into fledging fat, and hoists him inexpertly over the wooden bars.

      ‘Hush, little man,’ she croons, slipping down onto the stool and inserting her thumb into his fist. His fingers fasten atavistically and he gazes into her face, eyes luminous in their moistness.

      She smiles at him and he smiles back. Mammy says babies can’t do that, it’s only wind, but Helen knows her brother is smiling at her. She listens to his snuffling breath and a sense of peace settles on her four-year-old frame.

      ‘Helen, put that child down immediately. How dare you come in here and waken him?’

      The rigidly disapproving outline of her mother obscures the doorway.

      ‘I didn’t do anything. He was awake and crying already,’ Helen protests, but the woman grabs the child, setting him off wailing at his earlier decibel-defying pitch.

      ‘Now see what you’ve done, miss,’ shouts her mother, smacking Helen smartly on the backs of her legs. She deposits the baby

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