Eggshell Days (8 page)

“Ow!”

The echo of a dusty collapse somewhere behind an old screen made the thick store walls shake.

“We're okay,” Maya shouted.

Now that she was so far removed from the image of that helpless prawn, Niall would look at her and recognize not the unborn but himself—his own tilt of the head, or his way of standing with hands in pockets, one hip lower than the other. The secret longing to hear her call him Dad was too corny even to contemplate, but the fear of another man standing a better chance still occasionally loomed. His usual comfort lay with Maya herself, who appeared entirely unconcerned about the identity of her father. He could almost see her think bubble: I've got Niall, so what's the big deal?

His own think bubble, when Kat pushed him into considering their own child, sometimes read more or less the same. Maybe not the best thought to share with her, but possibly a better one than the other that often possessed him.

He had known Emmy for nearly fourteen years. To break it down, that would be two years of young love and endless sex, two months of blinding panic, one year of grief, another two of emptiness, ten quick minutes of reunion and a remaining eight years of pretty perfect platonic friendship. They were doing quite well, considering. Just as he was wondering what the next three months might bring, a blond wig came flying through the air.

“Hey, that's enough, you lot.”

The children screamed with laughter and clattered on.

“You're not related to Barbara Cartland by any chance, are you, Em?” Niall caught the missile and spun it round his fist but the tight curls stayed perfectly in place.

“It's quite possible,” Emmy said. “Is she or isn't she?”

He held the synthetic hair up to the light. “Oh, definitely, without a doubt.”

“Is she or isn't she what?” came an accusing voice from the large oak door. It was Kat, and when Kat heard the word “she,” she always assumed it referred to her.

“Wearing hairspray,” Emmy said, turning round and feeling guilty for no reason.

“What? Who?” Humorless was one adjective you could use to describe her. Beautiful, rude, talented and demanding were four others.

“No, you've come in too late. The joke's gone.” Niall dismissed her inquiry with a wave of his hand. “How are your legs? Ripped raw?”

“Smooth as a baby's butt, thanks.”

“Why didn't you wait until you got back to London?” Emmy asked, a little too accusingly. Asha's crying wasn't the only reason she'd taken the children outside. Sita and Kat had started making girly attempts at bonding.

“Sita's very good at waxing, actually. You should let her do you. Apparently, it makes even more difference if you're dark.”

“Or you could just say Em's got legs like a caveman.”

“Ug.”

“I didn't mean that. It's just that I'm so fair that you can't really tell when I need a wax, can you, Niall? So I don't know why I waste my money.”

“Sita charged you? Jaysus!”

Both women laughed, although Emmy's was the more generous sound, full in the knowledge that the dig was at Kat, not her.

“Can you give us a hand with this bike?” Maya shouted.

“Not me. These suede trousers cost a fortune to clean,” Kat said, taking a step back.

“All dry cleaning an individual expense, rule number twenty-three,” Niall replied. He didn't bother to suggest she go back and change them. He knew why she was wearing them: they made her bottom look like a peach. Why was it, then, that he felt more like sinking his teeth into the plumper pear that was Emmy's? She had on a pair of checked surfy things that looked as if they might once have been a curtain, and he could see her flesh gently rippling underneath. The last time he had made love to her, she'd been like a rake. He wouldn't mind seeing what she was like a couple of stone heavier.

“Niall, I want you to come back to the house with me,” Kat carried on. “I need you for something.”

“Can't it wait?”

“Have you forgotten that I'm going back to London tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Or that you're going to Ireland next weekend?”

“So? I'm coming back, y'know. It's only another passin'-from-purgatory moment.”

“You're going to Ireland?” Emmy asked. She didn't want him to go anywhere.

“Funeral.”

“Whose?”

“Kieran Kennedy, my brother's mate from way back. Heart attack, forty years old.”

“You'll see Cathal?” There was a catch in Emmy's voice but his name had to be pronounced with a bit of throat clearing—Ca'hul—so she got away with it.

“He better be there. I'm only going to keep him sober.”

“No chance.”

“Kieran was a fat bastard. Drank himself to his grave on Saint Patrick's Day.”

“But that was in March.”

“I know. It took him a long time to let go.”

“God. There's a lesson in that for you both. When did Cathal call?”

“A few days ago. Maya answered the phone and brought it to me when I was in the bath, remember?”

“No, she didn't tell me that.”

“Does she tell you everything?” Kat asked irritably. “Niall, did you actually notice me come in and start speaking to you? Only…” She whispered in his ear.

“Mary, mother of J, we've only just got up. What was wrong with suggesting that an hour ago when we were still in bed? I can't do it to order, anyway. Where's your spontaneity, woman?”

“You're not trying to put off all that humping you promised you'd do, are you, Niall?” Emmy asked.

“Would I?” he said, smacking Kat's tiny bottom.

Kat had no choice but to try out her most generous laugh, too.

4

Niall's “recreational relationship” went back to London on the same day the children started at their new schools, so it was hard to tell what the catalyst for the sudden burst of activity was. Maybe it was the hint of summer breeze that blew through the house after Jonathan opened all the sash windows, heaving and pushing until their ancient gloss seals cracked and the swollen wood retreated. Maybe it was the way the house martins swooped in and out of the eaves as if they were solar-powered. Or maybe it was just the basic truth that, in Emmy, Niall, Sita and Jonathan's case, four was company and five was a crowd.

“Come on,” Emmy said, leaping up from the kitchen table on the first Kat-free morning. “Let's get this show on the road. This lino can go for starters.”

She kicked at a cluster of tiny lumps under the green marble-effect flooring and managed to take the tops off them. A spray of ancient grit stuck in her toenails and in the rubber sole of her flip-flop. “Ugh, that is revolting.”

Sita knew opportunity when she saw it, but the breakfast things were still on the table and she hadn't yet found time to get out of her pajamas. “We should clear up first.”

“What's the point? We can do it later.” Emmy was teasing her a little, overplaying their differences, but Sita was ahead, as always, and said, “Sure. Actually, could you paint my toenails first?”

“Yeah, right. I thought you'd want to strike while the iron is hot.”

“Oh, the iron's on, is it? I'll just—”

“Bugger off,” Emmy laughed, beaten at her own game. She was already on the floor, picking at an upcurled corner by the Welsh dresser.

Sita tried not to feel too much like a performing baby elephant as she lowered her bulk to the floor to join her and rested gingerly on her knees.

“No one's going to approach me from behind, are they?”

“You should be so lucky.”

The flooring was tacky with years of neglect, a black line of grease running along the dresser's plinth where the mops of a decade of domestic helps had failed to reach.

“Uuch! It really is disgusting!”

“Yes, but it's rotten as well. We can just pull it off. Look.”

It came off easily in a pleasingly wide strip big enough to reveal a triangle of the original floor underneath. That was all it took for their idle peeling to become frenzied stripping. Suddenly, with that enticing glimpse of smooth gray flag, they saw a whole new world. Craftsmen-built units in sycamore, polished granite tops, a light-filled living space, part workshop, part heart and soul. Easy meals, music, newspaper mornings, homework and flapjacks.

“We could knock through to the store.”

“Run a massive sofa along one wall.”

“No stainless steel. I hate stainless steel.”

They developed their own techniques. Sita used a paint scraper to make sure she got under the loose pieces, Emmy just picked and pulled, taking her chances. Piles of discarded lino mounted up between them, and every now and again they found themselves pulling at the same bit. When that happened, they took more care, enjoying the challenge of seeing how big a strip they could draw before it broke. Sometimes, where the glue was bone-dry, the vinyl shattered and sent splinters shooting across the floor. Other times, where moisture had got into it from a spilt drink or rising damp from the suffocated slate, it was like wet wallpaper, coming off in dank layers.

It was a filthy but all-consuming task, so only when Sita's bottom bumped the table leg did they stop to assess the situation.

“We need to move the furniture,” said Emmy urgently, her cheek smeared with the lino's black glue. “Why don't we carry it all out onto the lawn?”

Jonathan, back from the first, surprisingly easy, school run and expecting to find them where he'd left them, drinking coffee and bitching about Kat in the kitchen, ran into them in the hall. He was just in time to see them take a chunk of plaster off the wall with the table corner as they passed.

“Watch out! What are you doing?”

“Waxing each other's bits,” Emmy said. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like you're wrecking the joint.”

“You do it, then,” Sita said, putting her end of the table down. “I need to get out of these pajamas.”

“Me too,” said Emmy. “Jon, go and get Niall out of bed and tell him we've got more humping for him to do.”

*   *   *

Two hours later, the circle of freshly mown grass in the middle of the drive outside the front door looked like the dregs of a house-clearance sale. The kitchen table, the chairs, the settle, the top of the Welsh dresser, the leather armchair, the bottom of the Welsh dresser, and the old electric cooker that no longer worked were stacked in a precarious pile in the center. Around it were boxes containing crockery, saucepans, Tupperware boxes without lids, rusting cake and biscuit tins, tartan Thermos flasks, ancient food mixers, enamel teapots, wooden and steel canapé dishes, corn on the cob skewers and far too many smoked glass trifle dishes. They had taken every single thing out of the kitchen which was now not much more than an echo, but less was already more. Even the boys could see that.

“Did Toby ever buy anything after 1970?” Niall asked, prostrate on the lawn. It was still only eleven o'clock in the morning but his second beer was going down very well.

Emmy put her foot on his chest, and held open a black bin bag.

“No. He wasn't materialistic, remember?”

“Right, that's the tea break over,” Sita said. “Let's get on.”

“I don't think we should let half this stuff back inside,” Emmy said, flicking the black sack. “Everything we think we can live without goes in here.”

“You're not going to chuck it away, are you?”

“No, I'm going to car-boot it next weekend at the playing field in Cott. I saw the advert on the gates yesterday. It's a fiver a car. It'll be a good way to meet people.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You'll be suggesting a feckin' barn dance next,” Niall said, lifting his head and squinting into the sun.

“Now there's an idea.”

“You're on your own, then.”

“Okay, I'll start. Do we want this?” Sita asked, holding up a chipped orange jug.

“No.” It went in the bag. “This?” It was a beige coffee perculator.

“No.”

“This?” Jonathan asked, picking up a flat broomhead. “It hasn't got a handle.”

“Get rid of it.”

“This?”

“Out.”

“This?”

“No.”

“This?”

Niall rolled over and held Lila's fat little hand. She was propped in a nest of cushions, watching them. “How much would we get for the Buddha?”

When he stood up, he took his shirt off, even though it was still far from summer, and Emmy pulled hers out of her jeans and tied it in a knot at the waist. They caught each other's eyes and smiled, and when they could they put their hands on each other's backs and pretended it meant nothing.

*   *   *

The bonfire in the top field was still smoldering when Niall threw on the old blue carpet from the sitting room. As he flumped it on the dying pyre, it created a mushroom of air and then fell down in a heavy flop, smothering the last few orange embers and billowing the ash into the air and faces of everyone standing around it.

“Niall!”

“It's okay. I'll get it going again.”

Everyone was so busy kicking the dead, cold carpet and wiping white and gray flakes from their cheeks that they didn't notice him disappear on his new toy—a four-wheeled quad bike he had bought off the farmer at the weekend—and come back with a can of petrol that Jonathan had bought for the lawnmower.

It wasn't so much the final destruction of the motheaten blue carpet that he wanted to achieve, as the resurrection of the fire. He unscrewed the lid and splashed the fuel around like an experienced arsonist.

“Stand back,” he shouted, but before anyone could react he'd tossed on a match and a furious ball of blue flame rocketed toward them like a costly special effect from a Spielberg space adventure.