Life Drawing for Beginners (11 page)

O
ne missed call
, Irene read when she came out of the shower.
One new voice mail
. She connected to her mailbox and listened.

Might take you up on that offer of a trial session
, the mechanic said, and left a mobile number. No name, just a number. What did they need names for? Irene disconnected and threw her phone onto the bed. Five days since she’d given him her card, he’d taken his time. She dropped her towel into the laundry hamper and began to dress.

Martin walked in as she was putting on her skirt. “You coming in today?”

“Afternoon,” she replied, crossing to the wardrobe and taking her shirt from its hanger. “Half past two.”

One of the advantages of being married to the boss was that you came and went as you pleased. You made your own appointments and were answerable to nobody. Today she had just two sessions, one with Joan, who was training for the London Marathon, and the other with Bob, a successful businessman too fond of his long lunches, whose doctor had issued an ultimatum that included an hour in the gym at least twice a week.

Bob regularly left her in no doubt that given half a chance, he’d be happy to take Irene to a hotel for the afternoon. She ignored his innuendos as she put him through his paces; the thought of his sweaty, overweight body shedding its navy tracksuit made her shudder.

“Can you pick up my grey suit?” Martin asked, taking his watch from the dressing table and slipping it onto his wrist.

“I can.” He was magnificent in a suit, an animal tamed with a well-cut jacket.

“Thanks.” He left the room again, and Irene smelled in his wake the delicious tang of the Tom Ford aftershave she’d given him for his last birthday.

She opened the bedroom window and smoothed the sheet on the bed before pulling up the duvet. Pilar stayed out of this room when she cleaned: Irene figured the less temptation was put in the way of the Lithuanian au pair, the less likely she was to give in to it.

In the kitchen Emily was eating her usual mashed banana and yogurt mixture.

“Hi there,” Irene said, resting a hand briefly on her daughter’s curly hair. Martin was usually the one to get Emily up and dressed each morning. He liked getting up early, it was no big deal for him—and where was the sense in both of them running around after one small child?

“Doesn’t she look pretty?” he asked, filling a little container with raisins and sunflower seeds and carrot sticks to put in Emily’s lunchbox.

“Of course she does,” Irene replied, pouring coffee. She opened the fridge as the doorbell rang.

“Pilar!” Emily slid off her chair and dashed out to the hall, Martin following.

Irene sipped her coffee and listened to the flurry of greetings. Pilar’s throaty laugh, Emily’s chatter, Martin’s deep voice. When Pilar eventually appeared, Emily was swinging from her arm.

“I fell off the ladder in the park and my knee was hurted,” the little girl was saying. “It was all bleeding, Irene had to clean it. Look, I’ll show you.”

Irene nodded. “Morning, Pilar.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Dillon,” Pilar replied.

“Look, Pilar,” Emily repeated.

“Oh dear, my poor Emily,” Pilar said. “You want I kiss it better?”

Emily nodded, and Pilar put her lips to the scratched knee and kissed it loudly.

“There—now it will get better very fast. But you must be careful in park, no climb on big things, too much danger for you. Now please, you finish the breakfast, yes? And then we go to school and you say hello to all your little friends.”

Easy to see, as Emily obediently sat at the table and picked up her spoon, how good Pilar was with her, how well she handled the three-year-old. Perfectly understandable why Martin held the au pair in such high esteem. Look at him pouring coffee for her now, as if she were someone who’d dropped in socially instead of the hired help. As far as Martin was concerned, Pilar was the best thing since sliced bloody bread.

“I’d like you to take down the curtains in the sitting room today,” Irene said. “I’m bringing them in for cleaning later. And you can clean the windows in that room too, both sides. There’s a stepladder in the shed.”

“I’ll get it out before I go,” Martin said immediately. Of course.

“And Pilar,” Irene went on, “would you please remember to clean the base of the toilet bowls when you’re doing the bathrooms?”

“Please?”

“The part underneath,” Irene said, gesturing. “Under the toilet. Below.”

Such a nuisance, having to explain everything. You’d think they’d take the trouble to learn the language properly if they expected to be employed.

“What’s on for you this morning?” Martin asked. Jumping in like he always did to protect the poor au pair, who was being harassed by her nasty employer.

“I’ll be in and out,” Irene answered shortly. “Nothing major.” She disliked him asking her about her day in front of Pilar—who knew what the au pair would get up to if she thought she had the place to herself for a few hours? Irene usually said nothing when she left the house: Better that Pilar assumed she’d be back any minute.

“Right,” she said, setting her cup on the draining board. “See you later everyone, have a good day.” Brushing Martin’s cheek briefly with her lips, keeping up the pretense that they were a perfectly normal married couple, laying a hand on Emily’s head again as she passed.

Upstairs she applied lipstick and blotted it. She stroked on eyeliner and two coats of mascara. When she heard a car starting up, she crossed to the window and watched Martin backing out of the driveway and heading down the street. She sprayed perfume and slipped on her silver bangle, and checked the cash in her wallet.

A minute later the front door opened and closed. Irene listened to her daughter’s chatter that floated up to the open bedroom window—​“broke my red crayon, and Meg was
cross
with him”—​until her voice faded and disappeared.

Irene took her phone off the bed and replayed the message the mechanic had left while she’d been in the shower. She remembered his dark eyes, the muscles popping on his arms as he’d braced himself against her car.

She took her keys from her bedside locker and left the room.

Jackie took off Eoin’s jacket and hung it on a hook. As she crossed the classroom in the direction of the teacher’s desk she waved to Charlie, who waved back.

Mrs. Grossman was bent over a bundle of copies. Jackie waited until she looked up.

“Jackie,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m trying to get in touch with Charlie’s father,” Jackie replied. “I always seem to miss him in the morning, so I was wondering if you could pass on a note.”

“Certainly.”

“Thanks very much.” Jackie pulled an envelope from her bag. “It’s just that Eoin has been pestering me to let Charlie come and play after school sometime.” In case Mrs. Grossman thought she had designs on the man with a lost wife.

“Yes, I can imagine—they’ve been joined at the hip since Charlie came to the school. But she’s a lovely little thing.” Mrs. Grossman took the envelope from Jackie. “I’ll put it into her lunchbox when she’s finished—that way he’ll be sure to see it.”

Jackie smiled. “Great, thanks again. I’ll get out of your way.”

She glanced in Eoin’s direction as she walked towards the door, intending to wave good-bye, but he was too busy chatting with Charlie to notice her.

“I assume you remember me,” she said stiffly.

“I do.”

Not looking too happy today. Still mad at him, no doubt, for sending her off to buy a book the other day. Ah well, she’d get over it.

“I brought her to the vet on Saturday, and he needs to know what vaccinations she’s had.”

“I can’t help you there,” Michael told her. “That dog was abandoned on my doorstep.”

Two lines appeared in her forehead. “Abandoned?”

“Tied to the door handle,” he said, “with a piece of rope.”

She looked offended. Probably blamed him for someone dumping the dog outside his shop.

“Look,” he said, as patiently as he could manage, “I think it’s safe to assume that she’s had no shots. Anyone who leaves a dog on a doorstep isn’t likely to shell out money at the vet’s beforehand.”

She digested this in silence. She smelled of honey—or was it strawberries? Something sweet anyway. Maybe she’d been eating more ice cream. Maybe she had one a day, to keep the doctor away.

“I also need a carrier,” she said, “and a rubber bone.”

“Carriers in the far aisle,” he told her, pointing. “Toys there, on the left.”

He watched her walk off. That was some rear view. Obviously loved her food, which was rare enough in a woman these days. Not that he saw anything wrong with a bit of flesh on a female. He’d always been trying to put weight on Ruth, but no matter what he fed her she’d never put on an ounce, and their daughter was turning out the same.

This woman liked her bright colors, in that yellow skirt and blue flowery top. Not afraid to be seen, not attempting to hide her size. Maybe she was some class of a bohemian, one of those free spirits who didn’t care what anyone thought of her. Probably lit incense and meditated. Maybe that was what he’d been smelling, incense.

He bet she talked to the dog too. Probably called it Krishna.

She reappeared. “I’ll take these,” she said, laying the carrier and bone on the counter and opening her bag.

“Twenty-six fifty,” Michael said. “I don’t have a bag that size.”

Her round cheeks flooded with sudden color. She dug into her handbag and pulled out
€
30 and slammed the notes onto the counter.

“And even if you did,” she burst out, “you’d probably make a song and dance about giving it to me. You are the
rudest
man I have ever met—and have you
never
heard of ‘please’ or ‘thank you’?”

It was totally unexpected. Michael wondered if she was going to jump the counter and wallop him with her green-and-pink umbrella. “If I had a big enough bag,” he said mildly, taking her money and handing over her change, “I’d give it to you.”

She made some kind of sound that was halfway between a snort and a disbelieving grunt as she snatched the change from him. “I don’t
need
a bag,” she snapped, “but a bit of common courtesy wouldn’t go amiss.”

He watched bemusedly as she grabbed her purchases, hanging on to her umbrella with difficulty as she marched to the door without another word. He made no move to open it for her, sensing it might be safer to stay where he was.

As she maneuvered herself and her goods through the doorway she glared back at him. “And
thank you
for opening the door, so
mannerly
of you.”

Michael came out from behind the counter, wanting to say
I was afraid of getting a wallop
but deciding to leave well enough alone and hold his peace. By the time he was halfway across the shop floor the door had slammed behind her.

He scratched at his beard. What had he said? As far as he was aware, he’d been perfectly civil. Was she upset because he couldn’t say for sure whether the dog had been vaccinated? What did she expect him to do, make the information up?

He shook his head and went back to his newspaper. Having a bad day by the sound of it, which everyone was entitled to. No call for her to take it out on him though.

“Cooee! Lovely day, isn’t it?”

James pegged a sock before turning towards the sound. Not for the first time, he wondered if Eunice lay in wait behind her net curtains, watching until he went out to the garden. He never seemed to manage a trip to the clothesline without her putting in an appearance across the fence.

“Hello there.” He lifted a second sock from the bundle of damp washing and hung it next to its partner.

“You’d never think it was October, would you? Mind you, it’s not as warm as yesterday—that was a real scorcher, wasn’t it? Gerry and I went out to the lake. You haven’t been there yet, have you?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Oh, you must take Charlie, she’d love it. You could bring a little picnic and go for a swim; it’s quite safe if you stay near the shore.”

“Sounds good.”

James had heard of the lake from someone at work. About ten miles from Carrickbawn, popular with families, apparently. A good place to bring children, he’d heard, with its little pebbly shore and a walking trail that went all the way around.

“So,” Eunice went on, watching as James hung a shirt on the line, “you’re settling in to Carrickbawn?”

“We are, Charlie has made lots of friends at school.” He picked up a towel and flapped it out of its folds.

“And you’re finding the job all right?”

“Grand.” Two more towels, a couple more shirts, a few T-shirts of Charlie’s. “Will the weather hold, d’you think?”

“Oh, it can’t really, can it? I mean, it’s October. Although the forecast is good for the week, but then they often get it wrong, don’t they?”

“Sure do, aye.”

“So you’ll be off to your class again tomorrow night.”

“I will, as long as you’re okay to babysit.”

“Oh, I am, she’s no bother at all—and your bedtime story over the phone was a great idea, she went off right after it.”

“I used to do it,” he said, “when she was younger, and I was working late.” Kicking himself as soon as the words were out, breaking his own rule of never mentioning his life before Carrickbawn.

“This was when you lived up north,” Eunice said. “What part was it again?”

“Donegal.”

“And was it the same kind of work you were doing up there?”

“More or less,” he said, picking up the empty laundry basket. “Now you’ll have to excuse me, but I’d better go and check on dinner—it’s probably burned to a crisp.”

Dinner had been eaten half an hour ago, but what Eunice didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Audrey climbed into the steaming, scented water and settled down, positioning the little inflated pillow behind her shower-cap-covered head. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and waited for the feeling of contentment that her nightly bath normally afforded her.