Barefoot Over Stones (16 page)

It wasn’t the best timing in the world but Alison was not about to reject her parents’ offer of a visit. She and Ciara had piles of revision to do but her dad had said on the phone that it was going to be a flying trip to Dublin. They had a two-day conference with a reception and dinner on the first night that they were going to skip in order to spend the evening with Alison. She hadn’t been home in two weekends because of exam preparation and they were missing her and wanted to make sure she was looking after herself. Their main concern, if they were honest, was that Alison had a boyfriend of a few months’ standing and Richard Shepherd wanted to make sure that no unsuitable type was lurking around his daughter and maybe interfering with her college work. He
had told Alison that she was to invite her boyfriend along to meet him and her mother. No decent young man would decline that offer, he reasoned to himself. If he wouldn’t show up Richard was more than happy to draw his own conclusions about him.

His wife, on the other hand, was anxious to get a look at this Dan Abernethy who seemed to have knocked her normally unflappable daughter sideways. Alison wasn’t being totally secretive about him but she was being reticent in a way that was new in her dealings with her mother. Cathy Shepherd’s curiosity was spiked by this change in Alison but ultimately she trusted her daughter’s judgement, which was more than could be said for her husband, who was just short of practising his stale boxing skills.

The flat was in its usual jumble-sale state but Alison felt that she would be able to make it look fairly presentable with a few hours’ work. Just as long as her parents didn’t look into any cupboards or pull out any drawers where she was planning on storing all the paraphernalia that she and Ciara (mostly Ciara, it had to be said) had left hanging around the living room. She had told Dan that they wanted to see him and had been delighted at his positive response.

‘Well, they can’t be any more dysfunctional than the Leachlara division. Actually it will be quite something to observe a married couple that actually like each other. I would come for that alone. Will Ciara be there?’

‘She says she might make herself scarce but I have told her that she is totally welcome to stay for dinner, whatever that’s going to be. The gas cooker is so bloody temperamental that I haven’t a bog’s notion what I’ll give them to eat. At the moment a few cartons of Pot Noodle from Spar seems like the most viable option.’

‘Look, my dad keeps filling the freezer with hunks of meat that Tony and myself are never likely to get through, especially now that Tony has become a vegetarian to impress the ladies. I have stacks of steaks and everything so I will bring over a few of those and grill them. We will make some salad and stick on a few spuds to bake. It will be better than anything they would get at that conference dinner. I will bring over plenty in case Ciara decides to grace us with her presence.’

‘God, Dan, that is just brilliant. I can’t believe you would do all that for me. Thanks a million.’ Alison clasped her arms about him in gratitude for how relaxed he was being about everything but also because she couldn’t keep her hands off him.

‘Listen, it’s the least I can do after putting you through that crappy lunch with my folks. I owe you and I am looking forward to showing your dad that I am not the low life he suspects I am.’

‘Why would he think you’re a low life? He hardly knows anything about you – I have been keeping your details to myself.’

Dan smirked. ‘It’s a father’s main function in life to think that whoever is hanging around his daughter is up to no good. Anyway, I will turn on the charm and see if I can distract him from the urge to throttle me on sight.’

Alison set about the cleaning of the apartment with as much energy as she could muster. It was not going to be a root-and-branch clean that her mother would approve of but, coupled with a blast of air freshener, hopefully it would do the trick.

‘Dan cooking steaks?’ Ciara was thoroughly amused at the prospect of seeing him get into a sweat over their temperamental grill while the Shepherds looked on.

‘What’s so funny about that? I think he is absolutely wonderful to help out because I was beginning to panic about what I could give them to eat. Dad is a proper-dinner man so one of our toasted ham and cheese specials was not going to be enough.’

‘Do you know what? I think I am going to have to stay to witness this, Alison. Will he bring a steak for me or will I have to fend for myself?’

‘Of course he will, Ciara. We are hardly going to sit there eating a big dinner while you eat beans out of the tin. Now, seeing as you are no good at cleaning, would you go down to the shop
and get an apple tart and a block of vanilla ice cream please?’

Ciara wouldn’t take any money from Alison. ‘Let this be my contribution to the war effort. Never let it be said that I refused to break bread with an Abernethy. I don’t even like steak, but for this I would eat the cow’s head.’

Much to Ciara’s disappointment, Dan didn’t burn the steaks or fill the flat with smoke and fumes. In fact he seemed like an old hand at the cooking game and it was clear that the Shepherds were well impressed with Alison’s boyfriend. Richard did his best to play hardball in the beginning but Dan’s charm had won him over within the first hour. He proclaimed the steak to be the best he had eaten in a long time. They didn’t even seem to mind that they were balancing their dinners precariously on their laps because Jean McDermott had neglected to provide the flat with a table. Cathy murmured her appreciation of the food and smiled so agreeably at everything Dan said that Ciara thought she was in real danger of puking at the love-in she was witnessing. Alison, who had been in floods of nerves all day at the prospect of her boyfriend meeting her parents, began to relax as the dinner progressed.

Dan had brought two bottles of wine, as had the Shepherds, so Ciara decided that there was nothing else for it but to start laying into the red in order to render her system immune to the display of happy families. She might have stayed there sipping her red wine, adding an odd superfluous comment to the conversation and helping herself to a second bowl of ice cream, but she was stopped in her tracks when Richard Shepherd started speculating about the future political career of Con Abernethy and the possibility of a ministerial portfolio. She listened as Dan commended his father and praised his ability and his patience in dealing with his constituents’ problems at every hour of the day and night. Ciara was deeply unsettled by the whitewash hypocrisy of the conversation and the way Alison sat there agog as if she had never heard a word that Ciara had said about Dan’s low-life father. In her eyes Con Abernethy was nothing more than a jumped-up stroke puller, a big fish in the murky pond of Leachlara, but most of all she thought of him as the pervert who was shamelessly tailing her teenage sister. It annoyed her to the very core that Con was being hailed as a politician awaiting his big break, a local hero about to grace the national stage.

Ciara topped up her wine glass from the bottle that sat on the hearth without offering to top up anyone else’s diminishing glass. Richard Shepherd looked at her and thought, yet again, that she drank a lot for a teenage girl and was most likely not the best influence for Alison. Unaware, Ciara continued to knock back the wine, willing it to work some of its relaxation magic. Her heart thumped in her chest with anger and although she had promised herself she would not say anything she could feel the threads of that promise unravel within her.

It was Cathy Shepherd who unwittingly snipped the final thread. ‘Your mother must be so proud of him, Dan. Did she ever think about running herself as a candidate?’

‘Ah, politics doesn’t really interest my mam, to be honest. She lets that side of things to my dad. It’s his strong point.’ Dan got up to make coffee, struggling with the awkward turn the conversation had taken. He wished he didn’t clam up every time he had to talk about his mother or his parents’ marriage, but worse was still to come. Ciara cleared her throat.

‘The pressure of politics is pretty terrible on families, isn’t it, Dan? I was reading an article in the
Independent
last week that said there was worldwide research to prove that politicians had the unhappiest marriages of any profession and that they were ten times more likely to have affairs than, say, doctors, solicitors or teachers. All that time away from home would I guess take its toll and give them plenty of opportunity.’ She took another satisfied gulp of her red wine and looked around to see the effect that she was having.

Richard sat staring at her. He was stunned that she would raise a topic that was so unsuitable. Too much alcohol did terrible things to people. Alison thought she might choke. What in the name of God did Ciara think she was doing? Her mother seemed embarrassed that Ciara was
talking about affairs and was anxious to say something that would assuage the discomfort that she thought Dan must feel.

‘Well, that’s very interesting, Ciara, but I’m sure they were talking about foreign politicians and not about Irish ones. Ireland is too small for people in the public eye to get away with that sort of thing.’ Dan smiled at her to show his gratitude for her interjection, but it was premature, because Ciara had just climbed to the top of the roller coaster where, it turned out, she was totally comfortable.

‘Well, that is what you would think, Mrs Shepherd, but the article made specific reference to one rural Irish politician. They couldn’t give his name, obviously, as politicians are notoriously litigious. He is screwing around on his wife with a schoolgirl, by all accounts.’

She paused to take satisfactory note of Richard Shepherd’s slack jaw, his mouth gaping in disbelief. Either he had scalded himself with the hot apple tart or the word ‘screwing’ was not common currency in the salubrious streets of Caharoe or the genteel rooms of the Shepherd household.

‘Picked her up in the local pub where she is a lounge girl and now he has moved her up to Dublin to one of his flats so he can carry on with her on the quiet. I was stunned, I have to say. You just wouldn’t think things like that would be happening in the places we come from, would you?’

Alison’s father cut in before she had a chance to muddy the evening any further with her indelicate talk. ‘No, indeed you would not. You know, Ciara, some of these newspapers thrive on the salacious and when it’s not there they make it up. I’m sure you have been told by someone before now not to believe everything you read.’ Richard had adopted a teacher-like tone. He would not tolerate Ciara’s sort of talk in front of his daughter or his wife and he wouldn’t have Dan embarrassed either, because he had to admit that Dan seemed like a fine sort of a man indeed. To break up the conversation he asked a pale-faced Dan to help him bring in from his car a desk that he had picked up at an auction for Alison. She had told him that she did her work at the kitchen worktop because it was the only flat surface, other than her bed, where she could lay out her books, so he felt she needed a desk, especially for the upcoming exams. Cathy told her husband to mind his back lifting the desk and excused herself to go to the dismal bathroom on the landing, leaving Alison and Ciara to face each other in the living room.

‘What the hell do you think you are doing, Ciara, bringing all that shit up? I could have swung for you, honestly. You had no right embarrassing Dan like that.’

‘What I was doing was injecting a slight dose of reality into the Walton-family glucose that you are all peddling. How many times do I have to explain to you that Con Abernethy is a shit, an absolute bastard? You still won’t take it seriously because of Dan. Do you realize how sickening it is for me to listen to all that talk of your father’s about the wonderful public servant that he is and how lucky rural Ireland is to have people like him? And to see Dan agreeing, even though he knows he is shagging my little sister and you sitting there like you have lost your tongue? That’s if you ever had one to speak of.’

Alison heard her mother flush the toilet and knew they had only a moment or two before she would be back in the room. She was hardly likely to linger there, as mould clung stubbornly to every surface. ‘We will talk about it again when they have gone.’

‘Oh, spare me that fucking fob-off. I cannot stick this hypocritical balderdash for one more minute.’ Hurtling down the stairwell, she squeezed past Alison’s father and Dan struggling with the awkward desk.

‘Where are you off to, young lady?’ Richard looked at his watch and was surprised that she would think of going out walking alone at such an hour.

‘I’m going for fresh air. It’s in short supply up there.’ She slammed the gate after her and was quickly hidden by the pavement-side hedges of the neighbouring houses. Dan looked at Richard,
searching for something intelligent to say, but all words failed him.

‘I think that young girl has a tiny bit of a problem with the drink and with her temper. Drink makes her sour and her talk random. She drank a whole bottle of red bar the one glass that Cathy had.’

‘She’s worried about her exams coming up, I think,’ Dan said, ridiculously grateful that Richard had not made the connection between Ciara’s rant and his father.

When they finally managed to negotiate the route into Alison’s room, Dan moved her books from the bed and put them in a neat pile on the new desk. ‘She will be delighted with this, Dr Shepherd.’

‘Call me Richard, please. The doctor title is pleasing for about a week after you qualify but you get sick of it, as you will find out for yourself.’

‘OK, Richard it is then.’

In the living room Cathy Shepherd was listening to her daughter explaining that Ciara was very stressed about the exams because she had not done enough during the year and that she would never have meant to offend anyone. Her daughter’s upper lip was twitching, as it always did when she was nervous. Cathy nodded as if she bought the story, but in her mind she resolved to find out a little more about Con Abernethy. It did seem that Ciara was making very personal digs and she was, after all, from Leachlara so maybe she knew something that Alison didn’t. Cathy decided to talk to Rena Lalor. Between them, Rena and Hugh knew everyone in Munster. Con Abernethy was doubtless not beyond their radar. Meanwhile, she would comfort herself with the fact that whatever the truth was about his father, Dan Abernethy was a very attractive and personable young man who seemed to really care for Alison.