The Year I Met You

The season between winter and summer, comprising in the Northern Hemisphere the months March, April and May.

The ability of something to return to its original shape when it is pressed down, stretched or twisted.

14

All my life I have followed and respected signs. When driving through an estate where there are signs for children at play, I respect that and slow down. When I see a sign for a reindeer as I’m driving through Phoenix Park, I know to be on my guard in case one appears from behind a tree and dashes across the road. I always stop at stop signs, I yield when I’m supposed to yield. I trust signs. I believe they are accurate – apart from when some vandal has quite obviously twisted a sign to point in the wrong direction. I believe that signs are on my side. This is where I get confused by people who say they believe in signs, as if it is an enlightening and remarkable thing, because what’s not to believe about something that points you to something and instructs you to do something? What is not to believe about a physical thing? It’s like saying I believe in milk. Of course you do, it’s milk. I think most people who say that they believe in signs actually mean that they believe in symbols.

Symbols are something visible that represent something invisible. A symbol is used abstractly. A dove is a bird but it is also a symbol of peace. A handshake is an action but it is also a symbol of amity. Symbols represent something by association. Symbols often force us to figure out what the invisible thing is; for it’s not always obvious. While jogging along Dublin Bay towards my house on 1 March, the first day of spring, I see the most beautiful rainbow, which from afar appears to land directly on top of my house, going through my roof and into my home, or landing in my back garden. This is not a sign. It’s not instructing me to do anything. It is a symbol. As were the snowdrops which fought to rise above the ground in January and February, standing shoulder to shoulder, pretty and timid-looking, as if butter wouldn’t melt, as if in doing what they had done, achieving what they had achieved against the elements was no mean feat. They’d made it look easy.

Monday O’Hara is another example. Him coming into my life, headhunting me for a job, seeking me out and thinking I am worthwhile. This represents something invisible too. I think of him often, not just because of how handsome he is but for what he represents. We have spoken on the phone twice since our meeting and I never want to hang up. Either he is very dedicated to his job, giving me so much of his time, or he doesn’t want to hang up either. The month he gave me to think about the job is up. I’m looking forward to seeing him again.

The rainbow over my house, the snowdrops, the carpet of purple crocuses in the Malones’ side garden, and Monday O’Hara are all symbols for me. They are all visible things representing something invisible: Hope.

I begin the day by decluttering. Before long the house is in such a mess that I realise I need a skip – which I have, but it is currently on my driveway, filled with expensive paving that attracts a string of untrustworthy types who keep knocking on my door to ask if I’d like help getting rid of it. So in order to fill the skip with my indoor junk I must first empty it of stones, but having removed the stones I must place them somewhere. It is then I recall your rockery suggestion. Even though it annoys me to take your advice – and worse still, for you to see me taking your advice, given that the skip is in front of my house, directly in line of your view – I know it has to be done. It’s too late to ask the landscaper for help. When he showed up after the storm, expecting to find the pile of turf destroyed by the rain and wind and instead discovering my not-so-perfectly laid front lawn, I told him I would do the rest of the garden on my own. Finish what I started, as it were. Not that I would give Larry the satisfaction of knowing that his comment had prodded me into doing something for myself.

Abandoning the ransacked house that I have made even more cluttered in my effort to declutter, I shift my focus to the garden. I am going to do this garden properly, this has my full attention. I draw up a list and set off to the garden centre to buy what I need to buy. I am focused. I am in the zone, the gardening zone. I receive two text messages from friends, suggesting we go for a coffee but just as I’m about to say yes to the first one – something I’ve taken to doing automatically, jumping at the chance of midweek, midday company – I realise that I am actually busy. I have a lot of work to do before the storm clouds start gathering again. The second text is easy to send: I am busy. Very busy. And that feels good.

Today is the ideal day to work because the ground is dry. Having realised that my ‘Indian Natural Sandstone’ paving stones are not going to give me the rugged look that I envisage for my rockery, I have made arrangements for the ideal natural stone to be delivered. Right on time, the helpful young man from the garden centre who has been educating me on each trip pulls up in his car, towing the rocks behind him on a trailer. He studies my sandstone.

‘Shame to waste it,’ he says.

We stand staring at the slabs with our hands on our hips.

‘You could make stepping stones,’ he says eventually. ‘Like they’ve done next door.’

We both look into the Malones’ perfect garden and see their heart-shaped stepping stones leading to a fairy house. Eddie wasn’t exactly careful with the jackhammer, so my stones are irregular shapes. It’s more natural that way and I rather like it. The garden centre man goes on his way, leaving me to amuse myself moving sandstone slabs around on my new grass. I improvise, using the end of my rake to decide how deep to position the slabs. Then I measure my stride and lay the stones so that there’s a stone underfoot for each step. I take my half-moon edger alongside the paver, step down on it to cut completely through the turf’s roots. I make an outline of the stone and then strip out the sod. I dig down to a depth equal to the stone’s thickness, then I repeat this process for the ten stones I have leading away from my house towards where the rockery will be. I mix stone dust with water in my new wheelbarrow until it is the consistency of cake batter. I add two inches of mix to each hole to prevent moving or sinking, and then I wiggle the stone into its slot and pound it with a rubber mallet. I use a leveller to set each stone evenly. All this takes me some time.

By six p.m. it is dark and I am sweating, hungry, sore, tired – and more satisfied than I can ever remember feeling. I have completely lost track of time, though at some stages I was conscious of Mr Malone pruning his roses and trimming the overgrowth while telling me in a jolly voice that he should have done this in January and February but couldn’t, not with Elsa so sick.

As I collapse into bed that night, relaxing into freshly changed sheets with the smell of ‘summer breeze’ tumble-drier sheets, I realise that an entire day has gone by without me giving a minute’s thought to my current problems. My mind was well and truly on the task at hand. Maybe it’s the genes I inherited from my granddad, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m Irish, have sprung from the land and this compulsion to dig, and the digging itself, breathes life back into me. I may have walked into my garden all tensed up, but as soon as I started to work, the tension disappeared all by itself.

When I was seven years old, Mum bought me my first bike, a Purple Heather, with a white-and-purple wicker basket in the front, and a bell that I used to love playing with even when I was sitting on the grass with the bike lying down around me. I loved the sound of it, I felt like it was the voice of my bike. I would ask it a question and briiing it would answer. I spent every day cycling out on the street, circling, going up and down the kerbs, fast, slow, braking, almost as if I was an ice skater swirling around with an audience watching me, judges holding up numbers and everyone cheering. I’d stay out for as long as possible in the evenings, eat my dinner so quickly it would be painfully stuck in my chest before racing back out to the bike. At night I cried, leaving it. I would park it outside in the garden and watch it, alone, as it waited for me and our next adventure. Now I feel like that child again, staring out the window at my darkened garden, knowing exactly what will go where, imagining each feature, how I can mould it and nurture it, all the possibilities.

I am having the most delicious dream about Monday O’Hara. He is listing, in complete awe, all the things I have achieved in my garden – which is no longer my garden but Powerscourt Gardens in Wicklow. I shrug off his compliments, telling him I’m a snowdrop and that’s what snowdrops do, no big deal, we’re tough, we push up above the soil, like fists being raised in victory. Things are beginning to get juicy between us when the sound of ‘Paradise City’ intrudes on my dream, blaring from a Tannoy system strapped to the roof of the groundskeeper’s van as he tries to clear the gardens for closing time – which leads Monday to realise that I’m a phoney, that the gardens I’ve shown him aren’t mine after all, that I’m a liar. Then the groundskeeper rolls down his blackened window and it’s you. You are looking at me and smiling, a smile that grows and turns into a laugh that gets louder and louder as the music blares. I awake suddenly to hear ‘Paradise City’ still playing. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to get back into the dream with Monday, to pick up where we left off before the groundskeeper ruins it, but when I do fall asleep I find myself in a different dream, with Kevin sitting on the grass, making daisy chains. Everyone around is dressed in black and he is speaking and acting as if he is ten again, even though he looks like the man I met in Starbucks, and when he goes to put the daisy chain on my hand I discover it is actually made of roses and the thorns slice my skin.

I wake up to voices outside. I stumble out of bed, disorientated, and look out the window. You are sitting at the table in your front garden with Dr Jameson. The table is now so worn the wood is chipping and peeling off. It needs to be treated – why this should occur to me as more important than the sight of Dr Jameson sitting outside with you at 3.10 a.m. confuses me. Dr Jameson is facing my house; you are at the head of the table as always. There is a collection of cans on the table and you knock one back, face parallel to the sky as you squeeze the can of every last drop. When you’ve finished, you scrunch up the can and throw it at a tree. You miss and immediately pick up a full can and fire it angrily at the tree. You hit the target and beer foams out from the burst tin.

Dr Jameson pauses to watch where it has landed, then carries on talking. I’m confused. Perhaps he has lost his key to your house and the two of you are too polite to bother me for my set. I find this highly unlikely. You burp, so loudly that it seems to bounce off the end wall of the cul de sac and echo. I can’t hear Dr Jameson’s words, though I want to, and I fall asleep listening to the soothing rise and fall of his gentle tone.

This time I dream about a conversation with Granddad Adalbert. Though I am an adult, I feel like a child again. We’re in his back garden and he is showing me how to sow seeds. Under his watchful eye, I sprinkle sunflower seeds, cover them up with soil and then water them. He is talking to me as though I am still a child. He is showing me how he prunes his winter-flowering jasmine, which he tells me can be pruned when the flowers have withered completely. He shows me how he prunes any dead or damaged wood needed to extend the framework or coverage of the plant, and then he shortens all the side growths from the main framework to two inches from the main stems. This will encourage plenty of new shoots that will flower next winter. ‘Plenty of new growth, Jasmine,’ he says, busily feeding and mulching.

‘This is not a sign, Granddad,’ I tell him in a baby voice that I am putting on, because I don’t want to hurt his feelings by reminding him that I am an adult now. It might make him realise that he has been dead for so long, and that could make him sad. ‘This does not tell me which direction to take,’ I say, but he has his back to me as he continues working.

‘Is that so?’ he says, talking as if I’m babbling and not making any sense.

‘Yes, Granddad. The jasmine is pruned back, but it is ready now, ready to grow, and that is not a sign, that is a symbol.’

He turns around then, and even though I know I am in a dream, I’m sure it’s him, that it’s really really him. He smiles, his face crinkles, his eyes almost close as his apple cheeks lift in that hearty smile.

‘That’s my Jasmine,’ he says.

I wake up with a tear rolling down my cheek.

15

It’s Saturday and as soon as I open my eyes to the golden light in my bedroom I want to leap out of bed, throw a tracksuit on and race outside to the garden, like the boy in The Snowman who can barely contain himself, he’s so eager to see his new friend. Of course in my case it’s not a snowman but a pile of rocks that I need to place on my sloping garden.

While I’m outside looking at the stones, Amy arrives with the children. They get out of the car and slowly, unhappily trudge away from her. You open the front door, and before you can get down the driveway to greet her she takes off. You are left watching her drive away. Not a good sign. The children hug you – not Fionn, he just carries on dragging his feet all the way up the driveway and into the house.

Finally there’s silence, and I like that, only it doesn’t last long. Mr Malone is back in his garden and I can hear him brushing his paving stones.

‘You shouldn’t power-hose,’ he says, noticing me watching him. He’s on his knees, scrubbing the stones by hand. ‘It ruins the look of the stone. I’ve got to have the place looking tidy for Elsa. She’ll be home tomorrow.’

‘That’s great to hear, Jimmy.’

‘Not the same,’ he says, clambering to his feet and walking to meet me in the middle where his shrubbery and grass ends and where my car and paving begin.

‘Without her?’

‘With her, without her. She’s not the same. The stroke, it…’ He nods to himself, as if finishing the sentence in his own head and then agreeing with it. ‘She’s not the same. Still, Marjorie will be happy to see her. I’ll tidy around in there as well, but I don’t know if she’ll notice a great deal.’

My spell of duty feeding Marjorie ended as soon as Dr Jameson returned from his holiday, but I’d noticed that Jimmy hadn’t been coping too well without his wife around. The kitchen sink was piled with dirty dishes and a foul odour emanated from the fridge. It wasn’t much and it wasn’t invasive, but I’d cleaned the dishes and thrown out the mouldy vegetables and the milk that had gone off in the otherwise empty fridge. He was so used to being looked after domestically that he hadn’t noticed, or at least he hadn’t commented. Still, once Dr Jameson returned to his hands-on neighbourly role, I doubted his duties would include dishwashing. Though his duties with you last night, if that’s what they were, had extended to 3.30 a.m. What you both talked about till then – you blind-drunk, singing and shouting, and Dr Jameson in his North Face jacket and his suntan – is a mystery to me.

I leave a respectful silence, though I know he hadn’t expected an answer. Then I ask, ‘Jimmy, when is the best time to plant a tree?’

He snaps out of his maudlin mood, perking up instantly at the question. ‘Best time to plant a tree, eh?’

I nod, and immediately regret asking. I’m probably in for a long-winded answer.

‘Yesterday,’ he says, then chuckles, the sadness still in his eyes. ‘Like everything else. Failing that, now.’ Then he goes back to cleaning his stones.

Your door opens and Fionn steps out, dressed all in black, hoodie covering most of his face, but the teenage spots and freckles belie his eerie choice of clothing. He comes straight to me.

‘Dad told me to help you,’ he says.

‘Oh.’ I’m not sure how to respond. ‘I’m, erm, I don’t need help. I’m okay, really. But thanks.’ I like the peace of working alone. I don’t want to have to make small talk or explain what it is I want done. I’d rather just get on with it by myself.

He’s staring at the rocks longingly.

‘They look heavy.’

They do indeed look heavy. I remind myself I don’t need help, I never ask for help. I’d rather do things myself.

‘I don’t want to go back in there,’ he says, so quietly that when I look at him staring at the rocks it’s as if he hasn’t spoken and I question whether I really heard it. How can I tell him no after that? And I wonder whose idea it was to come out here and help me. I doubt it was yours.

‘Let’s start with this one,’ I say. ‘I want to put it over here.’

Having Fionn there makes me move more quickly, make decisions faster than I otherwise would have. At first I struggle to come up with things to say to him – cool things, witty things, young things – but as time wears on and his monosyllabic answers continue, I realise he no more wants to chat than I do. And so we labour on in silence, starting from the bottom of the slope and working our way up, the only communication a word here or there about moving a stone to the right, to the left – that kind of thing. As the hours pass, he starts offering suggestions as to where to place things.

Eventually we stand back, sweating and panting, and examine the rocks. Happy with their position, we set about thoroughly embedding each rock so it’s securely in place, at least half of the rock buried below the ground. We mix planting compost and sharp sand to make sure the rocks stay in place. On the next level we move the smaller rocks, leaving plenty of pockets for plants. At each stage we stand back and take a good look from different viewpoints.

Fionn is quiet.

‘It will look better with the plants and flowers in,’ I say self-consciously, protective over my patch.

‘Yeah,’ he says in a tone I can’t read. His voice is a monotone, expressionless, seeming to care and not care at the same time.

‘I’m thinking of putting a water fountain in,’ I say. I have looked into this and am excited to have found a video demonstrating how to build a water fountain in eight hours. I’m further excited to see that I can use my Indian sandstone for the actual fountain.

We’re both silent as we survey the garden for a place.

‘You could put it there,’ he says.

‘I was thinking more over here.’

He’s quiet for a moment, then: ‘Where’s the nearest electrical socket?’

I shrug.

‘You’ll need that for the pump. Look – you have lights.’ He goes on a wander around the garden, seeking out the source of electricity for my garden lights. ‘Here. It would be better to put it near here.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, my voice as even as his – not meaning to, but it’s addictive. It’s so much easier not to make an effort, I can understand why he does it. ‘I’m going to put a pipe up through the middle of the stones like this, see.’ I layer the sandstones on top of one another to show him. ‘The water will come up through the middle.’

‘Like, explode?’

‘No, like… gurgle.’

He nods once, unimpressed. ‘Are you going to do that now?’

‘Tomorrow.’

He looks disappointed, though it’s hard to be certain, given the general drift between nonchalance and misery. I don’t invite him back tomorrow. I haven’t minded his company, but I prefer to do this alone, particularly as I don’t know what I’m doing. I want to find my way by myself, not have to discuss and explain it. Not that there would be much discussion with Fionn.

‘Are you going to use them all?’

‘Half of them.’

‘Can I have the other half?’

‘For what?’

He shrugs, but it’s clear he has something in mind.

I look at him, waiting for more.

‘To smash them.’

‘Oh.’

‘Can I borrow this?’ He indicates my rubber mallet.

It’s the most hopeful I’ve ever seen him look.

‘Okay,’ I say uncertainly.

He places the paving stones in the wheelbarrow and wheels it across the road to your table. Then he comes back for more. It’s as he is doing this that you come outside to see what he’s doing. You actually ask him what he’s doing, but he ignores you and returns to my garden for more stones. You watch him for a moment then follow him.

‘Hi,’ you say, walking up the path to me, hands deep in your pockets. You survey the rockery. ‘Looks good.’

‘Thanks. Dammit,’ I say suddenly, seeing my cousin Kevin turn the corner into the street, casually strolling, looking left and right as he searches for my house. ‘I’m not here,’ I say, dropping everything and darting towards the house.

‘What?’

‘I’m not here,’ I repeat, pointing at Kevin, then pulling the front door to. I leave it open a crack, I want to hear what he has to say.

Kevin strolls up the driveway. ‘Hello,’ he says to you and Fionn, who is placing paving stones in the wheelbarrow very carefully, despite his apparent intention to smash them.

‘Hi there,’ you say. You sound more DJ-like when I can’t see you, as if you have a ‘phone voice’ reserved for strangers. I side step to the window and peek up over the windowsill to watch. Kevin looks priestly, poker-straight back, brown cords, a raincoat. Everything is precise, neat, earthy tones. I can picture him in sandals in the summertime.

‘Jasmine’s not in,’ you say.

‘Oh.’ Kevin looks up at the house and I duck. ‘That’s a shame. Are you sure? It looks like… well, the door is open.’

For a moment I’m afraid that he’s going to come looking for me, like when we were kids and I absolutely did not want Kevin to come find me. That game when whoever finds you has to join you and hide with you, and you both wait for the rest of them to find you. Kevin always had a knack of finding me first, pushing his body up against mine, cramming into the tight space with me so that I could feel his breath on my neck, and feel his heart beating on my skin. Even as a child he made me uncomfortable.

You are quiet. I’m surprised you can’t come up with a lie – not that I have any proof of you being a liar, but I think so little of you at times that this is something I’d assumed you’d be a natural at. It is Fionn who comes to my rescue.

‘She left it open for us. We’re her gardeners,’ he says, and the lack of emotion, the lack of caring, makes him entirely believable. You look at him with what seems to be admiration.

‘Oh dear. Okay, I’ll try her mobile again then,’ Kevin says, starting to back away. ‘In case I don’t get her, will you tell her Kevin called by? Kevin,’ he repeats.

‘Kevin, right,’ you say, clearly uncomfortable to be in this position.

‘Sure, Kieran,’ Fionn says, taking off down the path with the wheelbarrow.

‘It’s Kevin,’ he says good-naturedly but a little concerned.

‘Got it,’ you say, and Kevin slowly wanders back wherever he came from, continuously looking over his shoulder at the house to make sure I don’t jump out. Even when he has disappeared from sight, I don’t feel safe.

‘He’s gone,’ you say, and you knock on the door.

I open the door slowly, and slip in beside you, hoping you will screen me from view in case he returns.

‘Thanks.’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘God, no. Wants to be.’

‘And you don’t.’

‘No.’

‘Seems like a nice guy.’

I need to hit this little candid chat on the head straight away. I do not want to talk about my lovelife or lack thereof with you.

‘He’s my cousin,’ I blurt out, hoping to end the conversation about Kevin.

Your eyes widen. ‘Jesus.’

‘He was adopted.’

‘Oh.’

‘Still,’ I say in my defence. It is and always will be disgusting to me.

Silence.

‘I’ve a cousin: Eileen,’ you say suddenly. ‘Had the biggest pair of tits, even as kids. All I remember when I think of her are…’ You hold your spread hands out over your pecs and clasp great big jugs of air. ‘I always had a crush on her. Crumb Tits, we always called her, because everything used to fall right there, you know. Like a shelf?’

We are both looking at Fionn as you talk, not at each other. Our backs are to the wall of my house, facing out.

‘She’s had a few kids now. They’re more down here these days…’ You drop your hands so those imaginary boobs fall around your waistline. ‘But if she told me she was adopted tomorrow… I would, you know?’

‘Matt,’ I sigh.

I look at you and see you have that mischievous look on your face. I shake my head. Whether your story is true or not, you are deliberately winding me up. I don’t bite.

‘Your sister, she-’

‘Has Down syndrome,’ I pre-empt you, crossing my arms, ready for the fight. Always ready: What did you say about my sister? The cause of most of my adolescent fights. Some things never change.

You seem taken aback by me and I loosen my posture a little.

‘I was going to say, your sister is a big fan of music.’

I narrow my eyes at you suspiciously and conclude that you seem genuine. ‘Oh.’ Pause. ‘Yes. She is.’

‘She probably knows more than me.’

‘That’s a no-brainer.’

You smile. ‘I’ve organised something for her next week. A tour of the station. Do you think she’d be interested? I thought she might be – I’ve done it for people before, but never anyone like her who I think would really appreciate it, get the full benefit. What do you reckon?’

I stare at you in shock, manage a quick nod.

‘Good. I hope it’s okay to ask, but I just want to know what’s the correct way to go about it? Do I drive her there, or do you want to drive her? Or will she make her own way?’

I continue to stare at you in surprise. I don’t recognise you. That you’ve organised a tour for her and that you are thoughtful enough to worry about the logistics is beyond my comprehension. ‘You’ve organised a tour for her?’

You look confused. ‘I said I would. Is that okay? Should I cancel?’

‘No, no,’ I say quickly. ‘She’ll be so happy.’ I struggle to find the next words. ‘She gets the bus by herself,’ I say, defensive again. ‘She’s perfectly capable of that, you know.’

‘Good.’ Your eyes examine me; I hate this.

‘But I could bring her,’ I say. ‘If that’s okay.’

‘Of course.’ You smile. ‘You’re a protective big sister.’

‘Little,’ I say.

You frown.

‘She’s older than me.’

A penny seems to drop. You have that look of realisation. But it’s sarcastic. ‘That would make sense. She’s more mature.’

A smile tickles at the corners of my mouth but I refuse to let it happen. I look away to Fionn. You follow my stare.

We watch Fionn picking up the mallet.

‘Are you seriously okay with him doing that?’ you ask.

‘Are you okay with it?’

‘They’re not my stones.’

‘A piece could fly into his eye,’ I say.

Silence.

‘Could slice his arm. Hit an artery.’

You take off after him across the road.

I don’t know what you say to your son but you haven’t handled it well. Before you even finish your sentence, Fionn is smashing up pieces of my expensive Indian sandstone on your garden table. You jump back so that the pieces don’t hit you. It’s as if you’re not there to him.

For twenty minutes he smashes everything up into tiny pieces, his cheeks flushed from the exertion, his face screwed up in anger. Your daughter, the blondie who dances everywhere instead of walking, is watching him from inside the jeep, the closest you will allow her to go, and you are at the front door, arms folded, standing upright, watching with less embarrassment and more concern as he batters my expensive stones. When he’s finished, he surveys his work, his arms loose and gangly and free of tension. Then he looks up and around, suddenly aware of his surroundings and the people watching him, as if he’s coming out of a coma. He tenses up again, the hood goes back up, the turtle disappearing into its shell. He drops the mallet into the wheelbarrow and he pushes it across the road to me.

‘Thanks,’ he grunts, before shuffling off again, head down as he passes his family and pushes past you, in through the front door. From across the road I hear a door slam upstairs in the house.

It makes me think I should call my dad.

I should. But I don’t. A few months into this gardening leave I realised I’d slammed my door closed a long time ago, I don’t know when it happened – when I slammed the door and when exactly I realised it – but it is obvious to me now, and I’m not quite ready to come out of my room yet.

16

I awake in the middle of the night to the same low voices being carried in the gentle wind over to my house, as though the breeze is a messenger, carrying the words especially to me. As soon as I wake, I know that I am wide awake and will be for the long haul. This despite the fact I’m exhausted, completely and absolutely spent; the gardening yesterday was so backbreaking and intense that I feel the effects of it each time I move, but it is a satisfying ache. Not the headache I used to get from spending too long talking on my mobile phone, the hot-eared, hot-cheeked pain and ache in my eyes from staring at a computer screen all day or the lower back problems and the right shoulder strain from bad posture at a desk, hunched over a computer. It does not equal any of these, nor does it equal the pain I experience after working out after a break from exercise. This feeling is so completely different and satisfying I am almost buzzing. Even though I’m exhausted, my mind is alive. It is invigorating, I am pumped and some of that is due to the fact my soul feels fed by the earth, but mostly it’s down to the fact I can’t figure out why Dr Jameson has once again joined you at your garden table, sitting out in the cold night air until one o’clock in the morning. What is so important that it can’t be discussed during daylight? Even more confusing, what on earth could you and he possibly have in common? You two are the least likely candidates on the street for an alliance, perhaps less likely than you and I – and that’s saying something. I eventually reason that you are a fuck-up and Dr Jameson is someone who needs to clean everything up, fix things. You must be part of his neighbourhood watch effort; perhaps he considers you a potential menace to the people on this street with your streetlight, window and garage smashing.

I throw off the bedcovers and admit defeat. You have suckered me.

I cross the road in Ugg boots and a Puffa coat carrying a flask of tea and some mugs.

‘Ah, there’s the woman herself,’ Dr Jameson announces, as though the pair of you have been talking about me.

You look at me, bleary-eyed, drunk as usual. ‘See, I told you: she can’t get enough of me,’ you say drily, but it is half-hearted.

‘Hello, Dr Jameson. Tea?’

‘Please.’ His tired eyes sparkle in the moonlight, his second night on the trot up past midnight.

I don’t even bother to offer you one. You are nursing a glass of whisky and the bottle is half-empty on the table. I don’t know how many you’ve had. Two or three perhaps, of this bottle anyway. There is a strong smell of whisky in the air, but that could be drifting from the open bottle and not your breath. You have a different energy about you tonight; you seem defeated, the fight all gone out of you. Though it doesn’t stop you from nipping at my heels, it is done with less vigour than usual.

‘Nice jim-jams,’ you say.

‘They’re not jim-jams.’ I take care to check the chair for broken pieces of stone, which are still scattered all around the place despite Fionn sweeping up after himself yesterday evening, obviously against his will from the angry sound of the bristles hitting the concrete. ‘They’re lounging pants,’ I reply and you snort.

I sit opposite you at the other head of the table and wrap my hands around the mug of tea to keep me warm.

‘Now the mad hatter’s tea party is complete,’ you say. ‘Is it cry o’clock yet?’

That stings but I don’t rise to the bait.

‘I’m afraid our friend is a wind-up merchant,’ Dr Jameson says, conspiratorially, jovially. ‘I wouldn’t take much notice.’

‘That’s what I get paid for,’ you say.

‘Not any more.’ I peek at you over my mug. Perhaps I’m looking for a fight, I’m not sure. I was aiming to match your tone, but it doesn’t work when I do it. You give me a stony look that surprises me and I know that I’ve hit a nerve. And I like it.

I smile. Payback. ‘What’s happened, Matt? Bob not going to fix you up? Thought you were like that -’ I cross my fingers the way you had done.

‘Bob had a heart attack,’ you say darkly. ‘He’s in hospital on a life-support machine. We don’t think he’s going to make it.’

I feel horrendous. My smile quickly fades. ‘Oh. God. Matt. I’m so sorry.’ I stutter my way through an apology, feeling just awful.

‘Bob was fired,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘Matt, please.’

You chuckle, but it doesn’t sound happy and I’m raging that you reduced me to feeling like that, for making me apologise to you.

‘Dr J, this woman is up and down more than a stripper on a pole.’

‘Now now,’ Dr Jameson cautions.

I can’t debate this fact – the up-and-down bit, not the stripper bit. It’s true of me with him.

‘So your buddy got fired,’ I say, slugging back my tea, feeling back on top again. ‘That doesn’t look so good for the routine investigation into your conduct, does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t, does it.’ You stare at me.

‘Unless they’re going to hire a new friend of yours to take his place. Someone else who’s willing to overlook your extreme error in judgement. Again.’

You give me a dangerous look and knock back your whisky. I should read the signs but I don’t, or I do but carry on regardless. I thought you were a man on the verge before but you were perfectly solid in comparison to this. I want to reach out my finger and push you. It feels like therapy for me.

‘Uh-oh,’ I say sarcastically, reading his look. ‘They’ve hired someone who doesn’t like you. Shocking. Wonder where they found him.’

‘Her, actually,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘Olivia Fry. An English woman. From a very successful radio station in the UK I believe.’

‘An awful radio station,’ you say, rubbing your face, the stress obvious.

‘Not a fan?’ I say.

‘No.’ You look at me darkly again.

I take another sip.

‘Try not to look so sad about it, Jasmine.’

I throw my hands up. ‘You know what, Matt, I can understand in a weird way, how you think that what you do is for the greater good-’

You try to interrupt.

‘Wait, wait,’ I raise my voice.

‘Sshh,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘The Murphys.’

I lower my voice to a hush but keep the power. ‘But New Year’s Eve? The woman in your studio? What the hell?’

There’s a long silence. Dr Jameson looks from me to you and back again. I can tell he’s curious to see if you’ll give the honest answer.

‘I was wasted,’ you finally say, but it is not a defence, it’s acknowledgement. I look at Dr Jameson in surprise. ‘I mistakenly took my anxiety pills with some alcohol before the show.’

‘And you shouldn’t do that.’ Dr Jameson shakes his head violently, already knowing this story. ‘Those pills are strong, Matt. You shouldn’t have been drinking at all. You can’t mix them. Frankly, you shouldn’t be on those pills.’

‘I’ve mixed them before and it would have been fine, except I still had sleeping pills in my system from that morning,’ you explain. Dr Jameson holds his hands to his head in horror.

‘So you admit that your show on New Year’s Eve was wrong,’ I say, more surprised by the admission of wrongdoing than the concoction of drugs you’d taken.

You look at me, eyebrow raised, unimpressed by my goading you. When I see you’re not going to repeat it, I look at Dr Jameson.

‘So, how was your holiday?’

‘Oh, well,’ he gathers himself. ‘It was rather nice to see the children and-’

‘It rained for two weeks, they were stuck inside and they made Dr J do all the baby-sitting.’

‘It wasn’t all doom and gloom.’

‘Dr J, you tell me to face facts, it’s time you did the same. They used you.’

Dr Jameson looks defeated.

What rings in my ears is you saying you tell me to face facts. A little glimpse into your relationship with the good doctor; facing facts is not what I thought you’d be doing at this hour, outside in your garden.

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say to Dr Jameson.

‘It’s… you know, it’s… I was hoping to stay with them for Christmas, you see, but no. That won’t be happening now.’

‘Dr J’s spent Christmas Day on his own for the past fifteen years.’

‘A little less than that,’ he says. ‘I was hoping this year would be different. But,’ he perks up, ‘no matter.’

We sit in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

‘You’ve done a nice job on your garden,’ Dr Jameson says.

‘Thanks.’ I look at it proudly.

‘She’s on gardening leave,’ you say, then laugh and cough ‘fired’ into your whisky glass.

I feel the anger building. ‘Fionn helped me with the rockery. He wanted to get away from his dad,’ I say.

Dr Jameson is amused by our banter. I’m not.

‘He’s fifteen. No one wants to be with their dad when they’re fifteen,’ you say.

I concur.

‘And there’s nothing to do here,’ you continue. ‘The three of them just want to sit around all day playing on their iPads.’

‘Then do something with them,’ I say. ‘Think of something. He likes being out and about, do a project with him.’ I look at the table. ‘Sand and varnish this thing. That’ll keep him busy. Do it together. You might even communicate.’ I gasp sarcastically at the idea.

Silence again.

‘Gardening leave, Jasmine,’ Dr Jameson says. ‘For how long?’

‘One year.’

‘What was your business?’

‘I was co-founder of a company called the Idea Factory. We came up with and implemented ideas and strategies for other companies.’

‘Consultancy?’ you ask.

‘No.’ I shake my head.

‘Advertising then.’

‘No no,’ I object.

‘Well, it’s not very clear what exactly-’

‘It’s not talking out loud for people to hear, Matt, that’s what it’s not,’ I snap.

‘Hoo hoo hoo,’ you sing-laugh, knowing you’ve touched a nerve and I’ve reacted perfectly, played right into your hands. ‘I’ve offended her, Dr J, somehow, sometime,’ you explain.

‘Why stop at one time? Why can’t everything you say offend me?’ I know that that’s no longer true and I feel bad. I think of the times when your words comforted me.

I look across at my garden, the only thing that can take my mind off everything these days, the only thing that will lift me out of this conversation and stop me from saying something I might regret. You have been good-spirited up till now, but I know that if I keep on pushing your buttons you might crack, and likewise with me.

‘What will you do?’ Dr Jameson asks, and it feels as if I’ve had to come back from somewhere far away to answer him.

‘I’m thinking of building a water fountain,’ I say.

‘I didn’t mean-’

‘She knew what you meant.’ You watch me thoughtfully.

‘That couple who live beside me, Dr J,’ I say, without realising I’m now using your nickname for him until you react.

‘The Lennons,’ he reminds me.

‘I saw them calling door-to-door yesterday. What were they doing?’

‘A secret swinging society,’ you say. ‘Right under our very noses.’

I ignore you.

‘I think she fancies me,’ you say to Dr J.

‘You are so childish.’

‘You are so easy to wind up, it’s almost a waste not to.’

‘Not normally. Only with you.’

‘The Lennons were saying goodbye,’ Dr Jameson says as though our childish spat isn’t happening. ‘They’ve decided to let their house and go on a cruise for a few months. After what happened with Elsa Malone, they’d rather live while they have the chance.’

‘Who’ll be renting?’

‘Your cousin,’ you say.

‘Really? I heard it was your wife,’ I shoot back.

‘A corporate man. Lone man. Companies pay an absolute fortune for their managing directors now, don’t they? He moves in next week sometime. I saw him having a look around. Young fellow.’

You make a bizarre tooting sound that I realise is directed at me. A schoolboy jeer. ‘You never know, Jasmine.’ You wink at me.

‘Please.’

‘Time is getting on. You’re not getting any younger. Tick tick tick, you’ll need to start making those kids soon.’

Anger burns within me again. You have the knack, I’ll give it to you, for relentlessly prodding at people’s weaknesses. ‘I don’t want children,’ I say, disgusted by you and knowing I shouldn’t respond, but I can’t give you the benefit of feeling like you’re winning. ‘I’ve never wanted children.’

‘Really,’ you say, interested.

‘That’s an awful shame,’ Dr Jameson says, and I want to get up and walk away from these two men who suddenly feel what I do or don’t do with my body is any of their business. ‘I see older women regret that decision. You should think about it, consider it deeply,’ he says, looking at me as if I’d just shot those words out of my mouth without giving the matter any thought.

I’ve always known that I didn’t want children. Ever since I was a child, I’ve known.

‘There’s no point in me regretting something now that I might not regret later,’ I say, as I always say to people like Dr Jameson who come out with exactly the same thing he said. ‘So I’ll stick with my decision, since it feels right.’

You are still looking at me, but I avoid your eye.

‘Did the Lennons say goodbye to you?’ I ask you.

You shake your head.

‘Why didn’t they say goodbye to us?’ I ask nobody in particular. ‘You and I were standing in my garden when they called to every single door. They walked straight past us.’

You snort, swirl your whisky around in the glass. You’ve barely drunk anything since I sat down, which is good because your children are in the house, for their one night of the week with Daddy and you’re outside, drunk.

‘Why would they say goodbye to you? You’re hardly the neighbour of the century. Two months of digging to help get over some kind of psychotic break…’

I can feel myself rising and I know I shouldn’t. It’s exactly what you want, to stir things up so that everyone around you explodes – apart from you. Hurt people hurt people. But I can’t help it, I’m hurt too. ‘So what does a fired DJ do then? Are there other stations lining up at your door?’

‘I haven’t been fired.’

‘Not yet. But you will be.’

‘They’ve extended my gardening leave for an as yet undecided amount of time,’ you say, with a mischievous twinkle in your eye. ‘So it looks as if we’re stuck here together. You and me.’

Something twigs in my head. Snaps, more like. I have realised something and I feel the heat of the anger burn through me.

‘You’ll still be able to go to the station next week though?’ I ask.

‘No,’ you say slowly, lifting your eyes from the whisky to meet mine. ‘They’re planning to restructure the station. I will not be setting foot in that place until they tell me what’s happening with my job.’

‘But you promised my sister you’d bring her on a tour.’

You study me to see if I’m serious, then when I don’t smile or laugh or respond you bang your glass down on the table, which makes both Dr Jameson and I jump.

‘You honestly think I give a fuck about your sister right now?’

The anger explodes inside me, runs around my veins like a poison. Everywhere. Hate. Anger. Repulsion. Rage.

‘No, I don’t actually.’

I feel Dr Jameson look at me, sensing something in my voice that I feel but that you don’t hear.

‘I’ve got three kids in there. And a wife that I’d very much like to come home to me. They are what I’m concerned about right now.’

‘Are you? Interesting. Because it’s now two-fifteen in the morning and you’re drinking whisky in your garden when you should be inside with them. But responsibility isn’t something that sits that well with you, is it?’

I should probably stop, but I can’t. All I’ve heard all week is Heather’s excitement about visiting the radio station. Every single day. Non-stop. She’s been researching it. She can reel off the station’s entire schedule, who works on what show and at what time, she’s been looking into the producers’ and researchers’ names. Every day she’s called me to tell me. The last phone call she made was to tell me she might stop working in the solicitor’s office that she has always loved so much to try to work in the radio station, if Mr Marshall would help her. It was as if she could sense my disapproval of the entire thing. But it wasn’t that I disapproved; I was reticent, hesitant to fully go with the flow because I was afraid that something like this would happen. That just made her try to sell it to me even more, trying to make me see how much she cared, showing her excitement so that I couldn’t step in and cancel it. My rage is bubbling very close to my skin, I can feel it about to erupt.

‘Your wife has left you, you’ve lost your job, your kids can’t stand you-’

‘Shut up,’ you mutter, shaking your head and looking down at the table.

I decide to keep going because I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you like you hurt me all those years ago. ‘Your kids can’t bear to be around you-’

‘SHUT UP!’ you shout suddenly. You pick up the glass and hurl it at me. I can see the hatred in your eyes, but your aim is atrocious and I don’t even need to dodge the missile. It flies past me and lands on the ground somewhere behind me. I don’t know what you’re going to do next. Take aim with something larger, like the chair you smashed through the window, or maybe your fist, like you did with your son – only this time it wouldn’t be accidental.

‘Now now,’ Dr Jameson says, in a loud whisper. He is standing up, as we all are now, and holding his arms out to keep us apart, like a boxing ref, only the length of the table keeps a distance between us anyway.

‘You crazy bitch – how dare you say those things,’ you hiss.

‘And you’re a drunk,’ I say, swallowing the last word as the courage leaves me and the sadness and terror creeps in. ‘Sorry, Dr J, but he promised my sister. He should keep his promise.’

I turn then and leave them, my body shaking from head to toe with rage and fright. I don’t bother to collect the flask of tea and mugs, wondering as I walk away from him if at any moment a flask or mug will fly through the air and smash against the back of my head.

17

As an assignment for school whilst studying Greek mythology, we were asked to write our own versions of the Achilles story. We were then asked to read them out loud, and as one by one my classmates read their stories, actual stories of people through history, leaders brought down by their weaknesses, I realised I’d misinterpreted the brief – but not misunderstood it. I wrote about a witch who hated children because of their cruel hearts, for the hurtful things they would say about her favourite cat. She plotted to catch them, kill them and eat them, but the problem was she was afraid of lollipops and it seemed that every time she came near a child, they would have a lollipop in their mouth which served as a sweet protective forcefield around them. Word of her fear spread and soon all children carried lollipops with them, holding them out at her, sticky and sweet, waving them in her face so that she was so repulsed she had to run away and hide from children for ever.

I got a C+, which was annoying, but more embarrassing was the way the children laughed as I was reading it, some thinking it was a deliberate joke to annoy the teacher, most just thinking it was stupid. The reason the teacher gave me a C+ was not because I had misinterpreted the assignment but because he thought I’d failed to grasp the meaning of the story. Lollipops could not be the witch’s Achilles Heel, he told me, they were something she feared but did not bring about her downfall. He never gave me the opportunity to respond – this didn’t happen in school, you were either understood or not – but it was he who was wrong, not me, because it wasn’t the lollipop that was the witch’s weakness, it was her cat. In her effort to protect her cat she ended up being cast off from the community and alone for ever.

I wrote that story when I was ten years old. I knew then what I only face up to now, in this moment, which is that Heather is my weakness. Any row, misunderstanding, failed relationship, or possible relationship that was never given a chance can without exception be traced back to a reaction, a comment, remark, or something relating to Heather. I couldn’t associate myself with a person who betrayed arrogance or ignorance, whether innocent or not, toward my sister. One sideways look at Heather and they were immediately ruled out. I never engaged in a discussion of their thought processes or core beliefs, I didn’t have the patience or the time for that. Boyfriends. Dad. Friends. I cut them all out. I don’t know if it’s how I’ve always been or if it’s because Mum is gone and I’m behaving in a way that I think she would want me to. I have a memory, a feeling that she was as protective of Heather as I am, yet I have no actual memories or examples to corroborate that. For the first time, it occurs to me that my actions have been dictated by something that has absolutely no substance, it’s totally unjustified. This rocks me.

Feeling horrendous after the spiteful things I have said to you tonight, I nevertheless force myself to block it all out. Sleep comes easily, because my mind does not like the alternative of facing up to what I said. My last thought as I fall asleep is to wonder if the witch’s cat would feel happier if the witch was less protective of her. After all, what use is the witch’s discontent to her?

I park around the corner from my aunt Jennifer’s house. My plan is to drive here, park and then my plan is all out of ideas. I debate whether to go inside or not. Do I know what I’m doing with Heather, with everything, or do I not? Big question, when I’d once felt so sure. From inside the car I stare at the house, my mind racing and empty at the same time. My plan is to get out of the car and then my plan is all out of ideas.

There is never any need to ring Aunt Jennifer in advance of a visit. Her house is one of those homes that’s always busy with her four children coming and going, plus their spouses and children, all equally unannounced, and now that she fosters children there are often people there that I don’t necessarily know. It has always been that kind of a house, and I had always felt welcome there – just as well, because I had nowhere else to go when Mum was sick. It was always the deal that if and when Mum died I would move in, but then the Kevin incident occurred, which tainted my view of the house, tainted my relationship with Kevin and over time tainted my relationship with Jennifer.

I can see how it was a great stress for her at the time, losing her son and the niece she was promising her sister would be safe with her. She hadn’t exactly lost us, we were right there, but when Kevin moved away I still couldn’t bring myself to settle in the house and I decided to live on campus in Limerick University, a fresh break from everyone, a fresh start for me. I saw Heather every second weekend. I settled in with friends and we created a family of our own, and I allowed myself to be mollycoddled by friends’ families for festive weeks. Heather was happy in the accommodation Mum had set up for her before she passed away, and on family occasions she would stay at Jennifer’s and Dad would come over to eat and catch up with Heather like it was the base for their relationship. It all worked fine for everybody, including me, and while it was all happening I created a mother for Heather in my mind that I don’t know necessarily existed by giving her ideals that I don’t know she actually held.

I slowly walk towards the door. My plan is to walk to the door and then my plan is all out of ideas.

‘Jasmine,’ Jennifer says, surprised to open the door and find me there.

She has red hair, dyed, and it’s been in a pixie cut for as long as I can remember. She wears earthy tones, wishy-washy greens and tans in crushed velvets, long hippy dresses with leggings underneath, shoes that always have thick soles like hovercrafts, big chunky necklaces. Her lips are always the same colour as her hair, though hers is more mahogany than my fire-engine red.

‘Isn’t this a lovely surprise? Come in, come in. Oh, I wish I’d known you were coming, I would have told Fiona to stay. She’s gone to Mass with Enda. I know, don’t look at me like that, nobody in this house has been to Mass since Michael’s wedding, but Enda is making his communion this year and they’re encouraged to go so that he doesn’t walk in looking like a tourist. Apparently the kids can play at ten a.m. Mass. If they keep thinking like that, the Catholic Church won’t have a free pew.’

She ushers me in to the kitchen, which should feel the same as before, should make me feel some sort of connection to the past, but it has been completely altered.

‘My sixtieth birthday present,’ she says, noticing as I take in the new extension. ‘They wanted to send me on a cruise. I wanted a new kitchen. What has my life come to?’ she says jovially.

I like that it is different; it immediately puts me in a new place, away from the memories of years gone by. Or at least it helps me see them in a different light, from a different angle, less of an active participant in it and more of an observer as I try to figure out was it over there, or over there, and is this where the bean bags would have been.

‘I can’t stay long,’ I say as she settles down, a pot of herbal tea between us. ‘I’m meeting Heather in an hour. We’re going to build a water fountain in my garden.’

‘How wonderful!’ Her face lights up and I can see the surprise.

My plan is to tell her what’s on my mind and then my plan is all out of ideas.

‘I’ve come to see you because… I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, as you know.’

‘Good thing for you.’ No sympathy. I like that.

‘I’ve been thinking about Mum. Well, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things,’ I realise out loud. ‘But I’ve specifically been thinking about how she was with Heather.’

I register her surprise, but she keeps it in check. I’m sure she was expecting me to talk about Kevin.

‘There are some blanks.’

‘I’ll help you if I can,’ she says.

‘Well, it’s vague. How was she with Heather? I mean, I know she was protective, of course, she was. I know she wanted Heather to be independent, set up a good life for herself, but I don’t know how she felt. What was she afraid of? Did she ever talk to you about Heather? Did she confide in you? Like what did she want to keep Heather away from? Heather is really spreading her wings now – she always has,’ I acknowledge. ‘She has a boyfriend.’

‘Jonathan.’ She smiles. ‘We hear about him a lot. Had him over for tea.’

‘You did?’

‘Then afterwards he did a Taekwondo display. Had Billy up, doing some moves. Billy kicked over my china Russian dolls.’

I laugh and then cover my mouth. The Russian dolls made of china always made us laugh.

‘It’s okay,’ she laughs. ‘It was worth it to see Billy raise his leg that high.’

We hold an amused silence and then it alters.

‘You know, Jasmine, you’re doing a great job. Heather is happy. She’s safe. She is incredibly busy – my goodness, she needs a PA to help her manage her diary! I can’t keep track of her.’

‘Yes, I know. But… sometimes I would love Mum’s guidance.’

She thinks hard. ‘A woman once said something about Heather. Something awful. Not deliberately, just naïve.’

‘They’re the worst ones,’ I say, but my ears have pricked up. This is what I need to hear.

‘Well, your mum thought about it long and hard, and invited her to our Tuesday-night bridge.’

‘She did?’

‘Absolutely. Invited her at seven p.m., even though it didn’t start until eight. Pretended she’d made a mistake and made her sit in the living room while she got the two of you ready for bed.’

I frown. ‘That was her comeback? Making a woman give up an hour of her evening unnecessarily?’

Jennifer smiles and I know I’ve missed the point. ‘She wanted her to see Heather at home, the way she was all the time, her natural self, with the three of you going about your evening routine just like any other family at that time of the day. She made sure that woman saw and heard absolutely everything – the normality of it all, I suppose. And do you know who that woman was?’

I shake my head.

‘Carol Murphy.’

‘But Carol and Mum were best friends.’

‘Exactly. They became friends after that.’

I struggle to digest that information. Carol was Mum’s firmest friend. They were thick as thieves for as long as I can remember. I can’t process this information, that Carol had once held those sort of views about Heather. I know it’s possible, but I struggle with it and my fondness for Carol is suddenly tarnished. In an instant. In the way my feelings about a person always shift when I become aware that they don’t know better, know enough, know exactly the right thing to say or do regarding Heather.

As if sensing this turmoil, Jennifer goes on: ‘Your mother never wrote anyone off, Jasmine – because that was the very thing she was afraid of people doing to Heather.’

And that’s what I was looking for. My plan is to take this information and put it into practice in my life in some way. And then my plan is all out of ideas.

I downloaded instructions on how to make a water fountain. I’d watched the video a few times on YouTube, an aristocratic sort of man in a padded vest and bottle-green wellington boots with a large bulbous nose explaining the process to me outside his manor as though I were a child. When it comes to gardening I like to be spoken to like that, because my knowledge of it is on a par with a child’s. He says it will be finished in eight hours and he proves it by completing the task in this time – edited down to eight minutes, naturally. I reckon it will take me a week, despite Heather coming over to help. Or probably because Heather is coming over to help. I certainly hope it will take that amount of time, as I have made no other plans.

‘Ooh, Jasmine,’ Heather says as soon as she sees what I’ve done with the garden. ‘I can’t believe it’s the same garden.’

‘I know. Do you like it?’

‘I love it.’

She looks at me in silence, which makes me feel self-conscious.

‘What?’ I look away, busy myself with our tools.

‘I’m surprised that Jasmine did this,’ she says, as if I’m not there but she’s looking directly at me. Her tone surprises me. ‘Busy, busy Jasmine.’

‘You’re one to talk!’ I try to keep my voice light. ‘You’ve a busier schedule than me.’

She moves a hair from in front of my eyes to behind my ear. She has to stand on tiptoe to do this. ‘I am proud of you, Jasmine.’

Tears prick behind my eyes and I’m embarrassed. I don’t recall her ever having said that before, and I don’t know why it moves me so much, so suddenly, so deeply.

‘Yeah, well, I am on gardening leave, after all. So,’ I clap my hands. ‘Before we start, I got you something.’

I give her the gardening clothes I’d ordered online. Green wellington boots with pink flowers, overalls, a warm hat and pink gardening gloves.

We are busy digging a hole big enough to fit the basin of the bowl in when your door opens. I try not to look up and succeed in doing this, my heart drumming at the thought of another confrontation with you, but when I hear footsteps approach, the dragging and shuffling sound tells me that it’s Fionn and I’m no longer afraid to look up. His Beats by Dre are around his neck, and his hands are shoved deep into his pockets. It’s like a Mary Poppins bag illusion. His hands are far too large to be squeezed into pockets of that size; the effort of jamming them in has pushed his shoulders up past his ears. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there and waits to be addressed.

‘Hi, Fionn,’ I say, straightening up my already aching back.

He grumbles something inaudible.

‘This is my sister Heather.’

The test of a good person right there. And then I remind myself that I need to stop setting so much store on that one moment: the introduction. But Fionn passes the test, grumbling the same inaudible response to Heather and looking neither of us in the eye.

Heather waves.

‘My dad was wondering if you need help.’ He surveys the tools and the hole. ‘Are you doing the water fountain?’

‘Yes, we are.’ I feel awful, but as wrong as I was to say the things that I said to you last night, I’m not going to spend the day minding your son again. Besides, I’ve planned to spend the day with Heather. But I can’t do it. I can’t reject him. You are probably still in bed, hungover. I picture your dark, stuffy bedroom, you as a lump beneath the covers, blackout curtains keeping out the daylight, while your children are downstairs, still in their pyjamas at noon, throwing cereal around the kitchen, stamping on it, mushing it into the carpet. Setting things on fire.

Just as I’m handing Fionn the shovel I hear a burst of children’s laughter and you and the two blonde children come around the corner from the back garden behind your house. You are saying something, very jovial, chirpy, playful. There’s a spring in your step, you’re in good form for someone who was throwing whisky glasses at my head in the very same garden less than twelve hours ago.

You whistle. A call.

I know it’s for Fionn. Fionn knows it’s for Fionn, but he doesn’t turn around. Nor do I look up.

‘Fionn, come on, buddy,’ you say good-naturedly.

‘I’m helping.’ Fionn’s voice comes out whiney, and then breaks.

‘No you’re not,’ you say happily, setting some things out on the table.

I want to see what they are but I don’t want to look at you.

‘Hello, Heather,’ you say cheerily.

‘Hello, Matt.’ Heather waves back and I’m stunned by their exchange.

You ignore me. I’m afraid to look you in the eye.

Fionn sighs, drops the shovel and, without a word to Heather or me, he trudges back across the road, hands disappearing in the magical pockets again, the weight of his long arms pushing his trousers down to reveal the top of his boxer shorts.

In a cheery voice you start to explain to the children what you’re going to do. I want to listen, but Heather is talking and I can’t tell her to stop. Then you turn music on in your car. The kids are excited and the girl who dances everywhere dances around and the other focuses hard on his task. I try to glimpse what you’re doing without being obvious; I try to position myself so that I’m facing you but look as though I’m engrossed in my work. You’re all gathered around the garden table. You are all sanding, and I almost stop what I’m doing to stare in shock. You have taken my advice.

Heather is still talking.

I finally tune into what she’s saying. She wants to go over to you and talk about the tour of the radio station. She’s been doing some research, there are certain studios that she would like to see. I tell her that it’s not appropriate, that it’s Sunday and you’re having family time.

‘I’ll be polite, Jasmine,’ she says, her eyes pleading, and that breaks my heart because I was never in any doubt that she would be polite and I don’t want her to think that it’s her I’m worried about. Finally I stop working.

There is another thing about my sister. She gets things into her head and she must absolutely do them. Absolutely. If she can’t, she cannot fathom it and it rocks her world. Maybe there’s something to be said for having challenges in life; it makes you work harder to face things, it won’t let you take no for an answer. You do more than most people would ordinarily do to rise to the challenge and ensure that your fear or whatever it is that threatens to hold you back cannot win. When I had finished my homework and could watch TV, Heather had speech therapy. When I was able to go out and play with my friends on the road, Heather had extra reading classes. Learning to cycle was a prolonged effort, while I just took off. She always worked harder for everything. This is why the meetings are important, because if she suggests something that isn’t ideal, then at least as a group we can talk about it before it takes over her mind. She did discuss visiting the radio station at the group, everybody agreed that a trip would be a great idea – everybody but me, and I didn’t voice my opinion. By failing to speak I let her down.

I once met a mother who, describing her son’s character traits, said, ‘Typical Down syndrome.’ I wanted to slap her. You cannot define a person by any one thing at any time; we are all unique. This part of Heather’s personality has absolutely nothing to do with having Down syndrome. If so, then Dad and I have Down syndrome too because there’s no stopping any of us when we get the bit between our teeth.

I think about lying. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I always feel that if I can somehow personally guarantee Heather’s happiness then everything will be all right in the world. But my philosophy has always been to tell Heather the truth; I might sugar-coat things occasionally, but that’s my worst offence. I’ve never told her a full-on lie. Realising that I’m about to break my code of ethics, I stop. A boyfriend of mine once told me that I was a people-pleaser, only I know that I wasn’t, because I didn’t please him – I didn’t even try. He seemed to be the last person on my list who I tried to please. What I realise now is that I’m a Heather-pleaser. There are very few other people I try to please; everything revolves around her. I realise that this does not make me a caring person. In fact it makes me rather selfish, because it has meant that in the end everything revolves around me too.

For years I have told myself that Heather looks to me to fix everything. But does she? Or is it that I think she wants me to fix everything? I realise now that she has never asked me to sort things out, has never given any sign that she expects anything to be altered by me, it is I who have placed that pressure on myself. I am having an epiphany. In my garden. Standing knee-deep in a hole that I have dug.

My first thought when I was fired was I can’t tell Heather. I thought it would upset her, that I had to protect her from knowing about the bad things in the world, that she would become scared about being fired herself. What was I thinking? What kind of education is that? Heather knows more than I the cruelty of the world. She hears abusive comments thrown at her, degrading things said about her by ordinary decent people who don’t know any better, both to her face and behind her back on a daily basis. I merely accompany her on that. As I hear you and your kids sanding and laughing on the fresh, bright, sunny spring day with Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ blaring from your iPhone, I have an epiphany. Everything in my life does not have to be altered in order to please me and Heather. I can’t continue sheltering her from everything, but maybe I can simply be there to help her if and when she gets hurt.

‘Okay,’ I finally say, hearing my voice shake. What am I doing? I am sending her over there to have her heart broken by you. I am doing this. I am letting it happen. I am so shaky, I can’t catch my breath and I sit on the garden bench and watch her cross the road.

The two blonde children stop sanding to watch her, warily.

‘Hello,’ Heather says happily.

You and Heather are talking. I can’t hear what you’re saying and it is killing me. I want to know. I need to know so that I can help control the conversation so that I can steer it away from hurting her. I feel helpless, but I feel like an executioner too. I have sent her over there to kill her faith in people, perhaps in me.

I watch you explaining something to her, your soft expression, your hands gesturing gently to shape the points. Then you stop talking and watch her. You wait to hear her reaction, but she is not saying anything. Your hands go to your hips. You watch her, uncertainly. You’re not sure whether to reach out to her; you do and then you don’t make contact, know better not to. Then you look over at me. You are concerned. You don’t know what to do with this young woman who is staring at you and not saying anything. You don’t know what to say. You need my help.

It kills me to do this to Heather but I’m not going to give it to you.

You start to say something else but Heather turns away from you and comes back across the road. Heather looks like she has been slapped. A stung look to her face, glassy eyes, a pink nose. I stay where I am, watching her, as she comes towards me and then passes me by.

This is what happens, Matt Marshall, when you let people down. You will learn it all and you will remember it by simply seeing it on the face of my sister.

Heather stays in the house and listens to her music on her record player, silently dealing with her heartbreak at not being able to visit the radio station. She doesn’t really want to talk about it and that’s okay, because neither do I. I carry on digging the garden, and the deeper I dig into the ground, the deeper I dig into myself. When I have gone deep enough, and I am raw and exposed, it is time to close the wound. I lay two inches of gravel in the hole I’ve climbed out of and place the basin on top of the gravel. I measure the distance from the hole to the nearest electrical outlet, then I cut a piece of PVC conduit to the same length. I thread a string through a conduit and duct tape one end to the plug of the water pump that I’ll add later. I pull the plug of the water pump through the PVC conduit and tape the plug to the end of it. This part takes me some time. I lay the PVC conduit in the trench and cover it with soil. I centre the water pump in the basin and lay a screen on top of the basin. Using my new utility scissors I cut a hole at the centre of the screen.

Next, I’m supposed to connect the water pump to the piping, but I can’t. It is too complicated and frustrating and I’m mumbling and grumbling and cursing to myself when I hear a voice behind me.

‘Hi, Garden Girl.’

It is not you. I know that straight away. I jump and drop the scissors into the basin.

‘Shit. Monday. Hi. Sorry. You gave me a fright. I’m just. Feck. My scissors. I’ll just… there. This thing,’ I sigh, and wipe my sweaty face. ‘I’m trying to build a water fountain.’

I’m on the ground, in a hole, and from down here Monday is even more majestic than usual. He is in a navy-blue suit and instead of wearing his tie, he is wearing an amused expression on his face, one which is fixed and directed solely at me. I steal a quick glance over at you. I catch you looking away quickly, as if I haven’t caught you, and return to concentrating on varnishing the table with the kids in that cheery scout leader voice that you’ve managed to keep up for almost an hour now.

‘I called you a few times but you were in your own world,’ he says, smiling. He lowers himself to his haunches. ‘What have you got here?’

‘A great big mess.’ I show him what I’m supposed to be doing.

‘May I?’

‘Please.’

He reaches out his hand and I take it, and allow him to pull me up out of the hole I dug. Not a sign. Not even a symbol. An actual thing that’s happening. As soon as my skin touches his I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel it all over my body. He doesn’t step back from the edge of the hole and I’m pulled up close to his body, my nose touching the fabric of his shirt, able to see the flesh beneath the open buttons of his shirt. I would like to stay there for ever, feeling his hard body next to mine, but instead I clumsily move away, unable to look at him in case he sees how he’s flustered me. He takes off his jacket, and I bring it inside for him, taking the opportunity to clean myself up, fix my hair, my eyeliner, defluster myself. When I return, he has rolled up his shirtsleeves and he’s on his knees on the grass, brow furrowed in concentration as he works on connecting the water pump to the piping. I try to make small talk but he’s busy concentrating and I feel like a pest, so I watch him for a while, then feel wrong for admiring him in all the wrong ways, then sneakily steal looks at you and your children varnishing the table. Apart from Fionn, who has deserted the task and is sitting in one of the chairs playing on an iPad, the other two are having fun. You are animated, engaged, communicative, funny. You are a good father, and I’m sorry for saying that you weren’t. The cynical side of me wonders if this is all a show for me after what I said last night, but then I see the genuine looks and sounds of happiness and am ashamed of myself for thinking that once again it is all about me. I then have an argument with myself about feeling ashamed considering all that you have done in the past, how you have let Heather down and the fact you threw a glass at my head. The winner of that argument is me; you deserve me to mistrust you so.

Monday is looking at me and I snap out of my trance. He has obviously said something and is waiting for an answer. I wait for him to repeat it but instead I’m embarrassed to see him shift his gaze to follow mine. His eyes settle on you.

‘His voice is familiar. Is that Matt Marshall?’

‘Yes.’

Monday is neither impressed nor unimpressed, and I’m surprised by how I feel about that. I don’t want him jumping up and down declaring that he is a fan and running across the road for an autograph, but I ready myself in a nervous kind of way for his dislike of you, as if I’m ready to defend you. It’s a peculiar response, considering I’m supposed to despise you so much, particularly after the way you hurt Heather. If we were in a relationship I would have to leave you and move far far away. Which is what your wife did, come to think of it. Perhaps you have that effect on people.

‘This is going to take me a few minutes longer,’ Monday says, fixing me with a look that makes me smile.

‘You don’t have to do this.’

‘I know. But it might give you a few more minutes’ thinking time about the job. You’ve seemed to have needed a lot of that.’

I bite my lip. ‘Sorry. You said I had a month to decide.’

‘Tops. We can talk about it after I do this, if that’s okay.’

I look at the wires in his hand. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’

‘I bought an old cottage in Skerries and did it up myself. New roof, new plumbing, new electrics. Took me a few years, but it’s habitable now. Don’t worry, I haven’t blown anything up. Yet.’

I try to picture him in his little cottage in the sleepy town of Skerries, wearing an Aran sweater and buying his fresh fish daily from a fisherman, but I can’t. All I can see is him, naked from the waist up, ripping up floorboards and stripping wallpaper with enormous power tools in his hands.

‘Do you have time to talk after?’ Registering my blank stare, he adds, ‘We had arranged to talk today…’

The penny drops. ‘Ah. I thought you meant over the phone, which is why I’m… we never actually agreed a time, but today is fine.’

He seems embarrassed that he has shown up unexpected on a Sunday, or is there something more to his awkwardness? If so, it is quickly covered up. Or perhaps I’m imagining it, kidding myself that I can see that vulnerable side of him, that he’s dropped by unannounced because he genuinely wants to see me. In the flash that passes between us I believe that is a possibility, but now it’s business as usual – or not quite, as he is destroying a perfectly good suit as he bends over a hole in my garden.

Thirty minutes later, as I have prepared tea for me and coffee for him, Monday and Heather are sitting at the kitchen table. Heather is telling him about her jobs. She is always proud of her work and finds it the easiest thing to talk about around strangers. I like that she does this, she is good at conversation, though I worry about her security. I don’t want her to tell random men about her weekly schedule in case they turn up where she is. I’m not worried about her telling Monday, obviously. Nor is she, because when she is finished, she asks him about his job.

‘I’m a headhunter,’ he says. ‘My job is to identify suitable candidates who are employed elsewhere to fill business positions.’

‘Isn’t that like cheating?’

‘Not really.’ He smiles. ‘I don’t like cheating. I see myself more as a problem-solver. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. I put the right people in the right places. Because sometimes people aren’t in the place that they should be.’

We catch each other’s eyes when he says that. He doesn’t speak slowly, as if she’s incapable of understanding, or loudly as though she is deaf, though she does wear a hearing aid. His sentences are short and simple, to the point.

Heather then starts to tell him about me, about my jobs – a simplified version, the version I’ve told her over the years. I’m confused as to what she’s doing, thinking she surely has misunderstood his job, but then I realise that she’s trying to sell me to him, which touches me so much I stop moving and can’t quite figure out what I’m doing. I’m completely transfixed, overwhelmed that Heather would do this for me, that she would know to do this for me. He is a person who gets people jobs and she is trying to get me a job. She lists my attributes and comes up with anecdotes to illustrate those attributes. It is something she has learned to do herself when attending a job interview and she has applied it to me.

She begins each sentence with ‘Jasmine is…’ The first sentence she completes with ‘kind’ and then gives an example of my kindness. She tells him I paid for her apartment.

‘Jasmine is smart,’ she says. ‘One day we were in the supermarket car park and Jasmine found twenty euro by the ticket machine. Beside it was an appointment card for somebody’s doctor appointment. So Jasmine posted the money and the appointment card to the doctor and told him that the person you have on this date at this time dropped their money in the car park on this date.’ She beams. ‘Isn’t that smart?’

‘That’s definitely very smart.’ He smiles.

I hope she’s finished now; it’s lovely but difficult to listen to praise. Instead she continues, ‘Jasmine is generous,’ and I shake my head and go back to what I was doing.

One peek at Monday shows me he’s touched. He is looking at her intently, fixated on her. He must sense that I’m watching because he looks over at me, smiles gently, then I have to start moving again. He doesn’t always understand her, he asks her to repeat some things; despite years of therapy, her speech isn’t so clear, but though I have understood everything, I stop myself from interrupting. She is not a child. She doesn’t need a translator.

‘Jasmine sounds like a great person,’ he says, eyes on me again. ‘And I agree. I think lots of people would be lucky to have her.’ I’m not looking at him but I can see him from the corner of my eye, the angle of his face on mine, and every single move I make is sloppy, while my heart bangs and my stomach flutters. I fumble with the milk carton, spill milk on the counter when trying to pour it into the jug.

‘She is,’ Heather agrees.

‘And you’re a great sister to say that about her.’

The next thing she says sends me into an emotional spin and catapults me out of the room so fast that even Monday has the brains to leave, and text me later – from his personal mobile – that he would like me to call him when I have the time.

‘I’m her big sister. When our mum died, she told me I’m the big sister and I have to look after Jasmine. I do all of these other things, but protecting Jasmine is my main job.’

18

First thing on Monday morning I’m woken by the sound of a lawnmower right outside my window. This hurts me on many levels. Firstly because it is just after eight a.m. and is generally an intrusive sound, and secondly because I had a bottle of red wine before going to bed. Perhaps I’m lying about the amount, it could have been more and it also could have been an entirely different spirit, but I’m feeling it today, the thud, thud, thud that penetrates my skull right to my brain cells, killing them as it does, and then drills back through to the back of my head where I feel it pulsating on the pillow. The thoughtless lawnmower user could be any of the four retired couples around us who work to their own schedule, avoiding any thought of others’, particularly as they know that I no longer have a job. It could be anyone, but already I know it is you. I know that it is before even lifting my head up from the pillow, because it goes on far too long. Nobody in the world has that much grass; only an inexperienced gardener would take that long. When I look outside it is as though you have been waiting for me to appear. You glance up immediately and give me a big fine wave. I see the sarcasm dripping from every pore. Then you turn the lawnmower off, as if you have succeeded in doing what you set out to do, and make your way across the road to my house.

I can’t move. I am too dizzy, I really need to lie down again, but you are at the door, pressing the bell, too loud, for too long, as though you have a finger on a bruise on my skin and are pushing it in short bursts of Morse code torture. I collapse on the bed, hoping that if I ignore you, you will go away, but apparently like every other problem, you do not, you only get worse. In the end it is not you that moves me, it is the sight of the bottle of vodka beside my bed that catapults me – at the pace of a snail – out the door.

I pull the front door open and daylight burns holes in my eyes. I grimace, and cower, retreat back into the safety of the darkened, curtain-closed room. You follow me in.

‘Yikes,’ you say at the sight of me, sounding too much like Dr Jameson. ‘Good morning.’ You are overly cheerful and loud, sprightly. Annoyingly so. If I didn’t know better, I would think you must have watched me drink myself into a drunken stupor, then deliberately got up early, the earliest I have known you to have risen, so you could make a racket outside my window. What’s more you have forced yourself to be cheerful, the most cheerful I have ever known you to be.

My intention is to say ‘hi’, but it comes out as a deep croak.

‘Wow,’ you say. ‘Rough night? All rock’n’roll over here at number three on a Sunday night.’

I grunt in response.

You walk around and start opening the curtains, and the window, which makes me shudder and reach for the cashmere blanket on the couch where I have collapsed. I wrap it around me and look on warily as you make your way to the kitchen, which is all open-plan – my entire downstairs is completely open-plan – and then you start rooting around in the cupboards.

‘The lemon bowl,’ I say weakly.

You stop. ‘What’s that?’

‘Your keys. In the lemon bowl.’

‘I’m not looking for my keys, I’m not locked out.’

‘Hallelujah.’

‘Why the lemon bowl?’

‘Glad you asked.’ I smile. ‘Because I think of you as a lemon.’

‘Isn’t it you that’s the bitter twisted one?’ you say, and my smile fades.

You continue to move around the kitchen. I hear cups, I hear paper rustle, I smell toast, I hear the kettle. I close my eyes and nod off.

When I wake you are holding a mug of tea and buttered toast towards me. My stomach heaves but I’m hungry.

‘Have that, it’ll help.’

‘From the expert,’ I say groggily, sitting up.

You sit in the armchair across from me, beside the window that is so bright I have to squint. You look almost angelic with the light cast on you, your right side seeming to blur at the edges as though you’re a hologram. You give a weary sigh, nothing saintly about that. The sigh, I realise, is not because you’re tired. You look rejuvenated somehow, flushed from the fresh early morning air, your clothes smelling of cut grass. You’re weary because of me.

‘Thanks,’ I say, remembering my manners.

‘About the other night…’ you begin.

I grunt and wave my hand dismissively at you, and sip my tea. It is sweet, sweeter than how I usually take it, but I like it. It is good for now. It is not vodka and for that my body says thank you. I don’t want to talk about the other night, about what happened between me and you.

‘I’m sorry I threw the glass at you.’

For this you are deadly serious. Perhaps emotional even, and I can’t take that.

I chew my toast slowly and swallow. ‘We were both wrong,’ I say, finally. I want to move on.

This isn’t what you want to hear. You are hoping for an apology from me.

‘Well, Jasmine, I was reacting to what you said.’

‘Yes, and I accept your apology,’ I say. Why is it I can’t bring myself to apologise to you, when I know that I should?

‘You said some shitty things,’ you say.

‘Have you come here looking for an apology?’

‘No. To apologise.’

I think about it again. ‘Like I said, we were both wrong.’

You stare at me intently while your mind works overtime. You make a decision not to fire yourself at me, for which I’m thankful even though I know I deserve it. I am being horrible. I offer you a little bit more.

‘I was disappointed you let my sister down.’

‘I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think she would be so upset.’

‘She doesn’t break promises. She trusts people easily.’ Unlike me; I don’t trust people at all.

You nod, digest that. ‘You know I didn’t say it could never happen, just not in the immediate future.’

‘What are the chances?’

‘Right now it’s looking slim,’ you say, grimly.

I should be thinking of the repercussions of you losing your job, what it will mean for you and your family, not of Heather and her lack of a trip to the station. I have been described as sensitive because of my feelings about Heather, but when it comes to others it seems I am utterly desensitised.

‘Because of what you said, I’m off the drink,’ you say.

I stare at you in surprise. I am surprised more by the fact that I could have said something to influence you, but I’m not at all surprised by the admission you’ve given up drink. Because I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you mean it or that it will happen. It is as though you are a cheating husband and I am numb to your declarations of how you can change. We are, oddly, that comfortable with one another.

‘I really am,’ you say, reading my look perfectly. ‘You were right – what you said about the kids.’

‘Oh please, Matt,’ I say, exasperated. I give up. ‘I wasn’t right about anything. I don’t know you. I don’t know your life.’

‘Actually,’ you stall, as if trying to decide whether to say it or not, ‘you do. You see it every day. You see more than anyone.’

Silence.

‘And you do know me.’ You look at me thoughtfully. ‘I think you think you know me more than you do, and you’re wrong about some things, but that’s just one more thing to prove to someone.’

‘You don’t have to prove anything to me,’ I lie. I wish that I could mean what I say, but I don’t. Every single word that comes out of your mouth I analyse for confirmation that you’re the bad egg I’m convinced you are.

‘Anyway, I want you to take this -’ You hand me the crumpled envelope containing your wife’s letter.

‘You still haven’t read it? Matt!’

‘I can’t,’ you say simply. ‘I don’t want to know what’s in it. I can’t.’

‘Is she speaking to you yet?’

You shake your head.

‘Because she’s said everything she wants to right there, and you’re ignoring it! I don’t understand you.’

‘Read it to me, then.’

‘No! Read it your bloody self.’ I throw it on the coffee table.

‘What if it says she’s never coming back?’

‘Then at least you’ll know. Instead of this… waiting around.’

‘I’m not waiting around. Not any more. I’m going to prove it to her.’

‘Prove what?’

‘Prove myself.’

‘I think you have already. That’s why she left,’ I say this half-joking, thinking you’ll smile, but you don’t.

You sigh. You look at the letter and I think I’ve finally gotten through to you. You pick it up and stand. ‘I’m putting it with the lemons.’

I smile and am glad you can’t see me.

A car pulls up outside your house.

‘Visitor,’ I say, relieved that this conversation has ended and that you will go. My head is spinning and the toast is sitting on top of vodka and cranberry juice, surfing an indigestion wave.

You examine the car from the window, hands on hips, face in a scowl. You are handsome, still. Not that you’re old – you’re in your early forties – but despite your lifestyle, the late nights, alcohol and concoctions of anxiety pills, sleeping pills and whatever else you do, it hasn’t affected you on the outside as much as it should have.

‘I don’t think it’s for me,’ you say, still examining the car. ‘He’s just sitting in the car.’

‘Why didn’t you ever work in TV?’ I ask suddenly. Usually, successful DJs with an audience like yours and a fan base such as yours make the transition, and it occurs to me right now that you are quite handsome, to some people, and TV being TV, handsomeness is as high up on the list as intelligence – often higher.

‘I did,’ you say, turning around, surprised as I am that I’ve asked you a question about yourself, about your life, about your job. ‘About five years ago I had a late-night talk show, a discussion show like on the radio. Wednesday nights, eleven thirty.’

You are looking at me as if I should know this, but I shake my head.

‘We sat around a table with a bunch of people someone else booked, talking about things I wanted to talk about, but not talking about them properly. I packed it in. You can’t say anything on TV. Far more freedom on radio.’

‘Like orgasms to ring in the New Year.’

You sigh and sit down. ‘Women aren’t the only people to talk about things, you know that.’

I’m confused.

‘I have a friend. Let’s call him Joey.’

‘Or we can call him you?’

‘No. Not me.’ And I believe you. ‘One day Joey tells me that he and his wife are having fertility problems. They’ve been married seven years and never had kids. Over a pint one night he tells me that he’s been faking it when they’re in bed. First I ever heard of it. Of a guy doing it, anyway. No harm comes of it when a woman fakes, obviously, but it’s different when it’s a guy and his wife wants kids – then it becomes a problem. He can’t tell her he’s been faking. He’s really got himself backed into a corner, you know? She’s had herself checked out and everything seems okay from her end…’

Really, the way you phrase it is inspiring.

‘So she wanted him to get his thing checked. For fertility. But he didn’t want to because he knows he’s fine. Or presumes he is. So instead of admitting that he’s been faking it most of the time, and that he’d rather do things in bed maybe a different way that would help him, you know, he tells her he doesn’t want kids. Which he does, but he panicked and didn’t know what else to say. Anyway, they broke up. All because he couldn’t tell her.’ You shake your head. ‘Thought that was worth talking about on air.’

‘Well, it is,’ I say. Personally I wouldn’t particularly want to hear five people shouting and arguing over each other on bad phone connections at midnight talking about it, but I can see his point.

‘So Tony has this idea to ring in the New Year with the woman. I said, okay, whatever. I didn’t really care. Thought it was funny. It tied in with the discussion. No big deal.’

‘Who’s Tony?’

‘Producer. He arranged it. Brings this woman into the studio. She starts making sounds down the mic. No, it wasn’t real,’ you say to me. ‘Contrary to tabloid reports. But she was a prostitute. That’s the problem. Tony paid her.’ You shake your head. ‘Jesus. Tony’s fucked as well. He’d been having girlfriend problems for a while. She took off, he’s… well, he’s not doing as well as me.’

‘Sounds to me like a lot of this is Tony’s fault.’

‘No. It’s my show. I should have known what I was doing. To be honest, I was so fucked that night, that whole week, I didn’t know what was going on. I’ve done that plenty of times and gotten away with it, but this time…’ You stand up and look out the window again. ‘What’s this guy doing? He’s just gawking at my house.’

I finally stand up from the couch and look out the window. The car is directly outside your house, the man is peering in. ‘You get many fans?’

‘Yeah, this one girl was so mad about me she moved into the house across the road from me. Redhead. Big tits. Couldn’t get enough of me.’

I actually smile. ‘Maybe he’s waiting for you because he knows you’re not at home.’

‘And how would he know that? Unless he’s been watching me. I’m going over to him.’

I can hear the anger in your voice and I know that this won’t go well.

‘Wait, Matt, he’s getting out of the car.’

You come back to the window and we watch him. He has something in his hand, something black. A camera. He lifts it up and starts taking photos of your house.

‘The little…’

It’s a delayed reaction. The photographer has taken quite a few shots before you realise what’s going on. We watch as he examines them on the camera’s LCD screen, then he moves along the road to get another angle.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, Matt,’ I warn. ‘You’ll only get yourself in more trouble,’ I shout after you, but my advice goes not on deaf ears but on absent ears as you fire yourself out of my house. It’s as though my words have given you an idea, because you do exactly what I cautioned against: you charge at the photographer. He turns and sees you, sees the aggression on your face and smiles with delight at the photo opportunity. But you don’t stop charging. You reach for the camera, grab it, throw it down the road, then you manhandle the photographer into the car. I don’t see it all exactly as it happens, because I’m watching from behind my hands. Besides, something tells me it’s better that there are no witnesses.

As a result of your behaviour, one hour later I am still in my dressing gown and there are three more photographers camped outside your house, facing my house, while you pace up and down my living room, blocking my view of Diagnosis Murder and shouting down the phone to your agent. The news that you’ve been fired has been leaked to the press before the station informed you, and they’ve put you on six months’ gardening leave so that you don’t immediately sign up with a rival station – which is what you are ranting about doing.

I know exactly how you feel, but I also see that your wanting to work for another station is purely a way of getting back at your current employers and not because you genuinely want to get back to work. It occurs to me that perhaps taking six months out to think about what your next move should be is the best thing for you. This is an interesting concept, one I had not thought of before. While you feel you are imprisoned, I see opportunity for you. Perhaps I am moving forward.

I am unable to work in my garden because of the photographers outside, though the water fountain is calling me to finish it, and my hangover desperately needs some fresh air. I’d hoped they would leave for a mid-morning snack, but instead one of them disappears and comes back with a carrier bag full of EuroSpar rolls and they all lean against the car and snack outside. I did attempt to go outside while they were taking this break, but as soon as I opened the door, ham, egg, coleslaw and brown paper bags went flying as they discarded their food and grabbed their cameras. Despite my protestations of being a private citizen, they kept snapping at me. Only when they finally realised their memory cards would run out of space and I’d still be on my knees gardening did they eventually stop. However I was feeling too self-conscious to keep working under their gaze, especially given that I don’t know what I’m doing, so I retreated back into the house.

‘Sorry,’ you say when I slam the front door on them all and turn to you, red-faced. When the heavens open for the rest of the day and they all retreat into one car, huddled together with their enormous cameras on their laps, I shout ‘Ha!’ in their faces. ‘I hope your cameras rust!’

You look up from your own silent fury to watch me with amusement.

Dr Jameson calls over, pretending to be annoyed but secretly loving the dilemma and excitement. He wants to discuss the paparazzi problem on our street and what we can do about it. I go upstairs to lie down.

Unusually, my friend Caroline rings and asks if she can call around. I’m surprised to hear from her for two reasons: she works in a bank, repossessing people’s homes and possessions and is never available midweek, and even when she is free she is busy having sex with her new boyfriend who is eight years younger than her and whom she met after discovering her husband had had multiple affairs. I have been happy not to be seeing her, knowing that she is now in a better place. Literally.

She calls over, so excited she is fit to burst, and the only place we can talk is in my bedroom because you are pacing the floor and talking to your solicitor because the paparazzo whose camera you grabbed is threatening to press charges against you for criminal damage. These charges will not stick because he has already made money selling the photos he took. They’ve surfaced on the internet, on a variety of gossip and entertainment websites, and he’s captured you charging at the camera, looking as if you’re going to kill someone. He’s shot you from a low angle, so you look like King Kong with two double chins and a bulging belly, intent on crushing everything in your path.

Dr Jameson and I huddle around the laptop screen to examine them.

‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ you say. ‘I’m glad my kids aren’t there.’

‘My rockery looks nice,’ I say, zooming in on my garden in the background. ‘Wish I’d finished the water fountain though.’ I pout.

I head upstairs before you can do a King Kong on me, and Dr Jameson goes back to watching Homes Under the Hammer.

‘That flat looked better before the makeover,’ he says as I leave the room.

‘This house is a madhouse,’ Caroline says, taking the cup of coffee I’ve brought her.

‘Welcome to my new world,’ I say wryly.

‘So, where was I?’

‘You were at the popping candy bit.’

‘Oh yeah.’ Her eyes light up and she resumes the account of her and her new boyfriend’s bedroom shenanigans, which have long since left the bedroom. ‘So anyway,’ she takes a breath when she’s finished, ‘the reason I’m really here is because I’ve come up with an amazing business idea… and I want you to work with me on it,’ she squeals. ‘All I have is this mega idea and no clue where to take it. You’ve done this loads of times. Will you do it? Please?’

‘Oh my goodness,’ I say, wide-eyed, very excited but a little anxious too. Working with friends is a tricky thing and I haven’t even heard the idea yet. I mentally plan my exit, expecting it to be crap. ‘Tell me about it.’

She is more prepared than I thought. She takes out a folder labelled GÚNA NUA – Irish for ‘new dress’. The idea is that you post a photo of your dress on a website – she’s already bought the domain name – and you choose another dress to swap with. That dress then leaves your hands and a new dress arrives in its place. No money changes hands, everything comes with the promise of being dry-cleaned and in mint condition.

‘There will be a selection of designer dresses, vintage, high street – whatever you like. It’s like getting a free dress, and it’s a way to get rid of the stuff you don’t want in your wardrobe.’

‘So how do you make money?’

‘A sign-up fee. Membership. For fifty euro a year you can get as many free dresses as you want. Honestly, Jasmine, I know there’s a market for this, I’m seeing people’s situations every day and it’s depressing. Dress-swapping is the way to go, I’m sure of it.’

It is not a flawless business idea by any means and I think fifty euro is too expensive, but any problem I can see, I can also see a solution. I’m bordering on interest.

‘I know you really need this right now too, so really think about it,’ she says, in an effort to convince me. In fact, this does the opposite.

It sounds as if she is doing me a favour, which is not the case: she needs me to help develop this further. So far it’s a good but badly thought-out idea. She needs me to help make it a reality. I don’t like her spin of it being a help to me. I feel prickly hot inside with frustration. She isn’t sensing it though and she continues.

‘Your garden leave is up in when, November? We can be quietly working on this until it’s ready to launch and by then you’ll be finished gardening leave. Which is perfect, because I don’t think there’ll be any more room down there for daffodils.’ She means this to be complimentary, but it doesn’t feel it.

‘Daffodils don’t grow in November,’ I say, defensive of my garden.

She frowns. ‘Okay,’ she says slowly.

I leave a long silence.

She snaps the folder shut. ‘If you think it’s shit, say it’s shit.’ She brings it to her chest and hugs it.

‘No, it’s not the idea. It’s, it’s just that, I’m not stuck for work, Caroline, I appreciate you thinking of me and that this would be good for me, but I do have a job offer already.’

‘What job?’

‘I’ve been headhunted – by this gorgeous man, by the way,’ I smile and try to be serious: ‘It’s to set up an organisation dealing with climate change and human rights.’

‘Climate change? Why the sudden interest? Did your snowdrops come up late this year?’ she laughs.

This is meant to be funny. My friends have all been teasing me lately about my dedication to my garden. I have refused coffee dates, I have talked about the process on nights out. It’s the new thing: let’s all tease Jasmine about the garden. I get it, I really do, but… The way Caroline looks at me makes me question if I should even be thinking about going for the job, but I don’t care for her attitude, the implication that I need her.

‘So you’re taking this job?’

‘I’ve been thinking about it.’ I surprise myself with this honesty.

‘Would you get to meet Bono?’

Finally her face softens and I laugh and rub my face tiredly.

‘Jasmine,’ she says gently, ‘do you want to work with me? Yes or no? I won’t take it personally.’

I bite my lip, unable to make a decision there and then. ‘Tell me about the popping candy again.’

Understanding I need more time, she says, ‘Okay but whoever it is you’re planning this with, you’ll have to tell them to shave everything down there because it gets a bit sticky.’

And as she talks, all I can think of is Monday. Not because of the popping-candy scenario, but because I don’t want to let him down, this man I barely know who seems to have so much faith in me.

‘Monday,’ I say into the phone, feeling light-headed at the sound of his voice, and a little nervous about what I have to tell him.

‘Jasmine. Perfect. I was just thinking of you. Which isn’t unusual these days.’

It is a beautiful sentiment that is quite unusual, given our relationship, but he moves on quickly as though he hasn’t dropped it in at all. He sounds like he’s out; I can hear traffic, people, wind. Busy man in the city, headhunting people, while I’m here, in my garden, the place I’ve chosen to ring him because it’s the only place where my mind can find peace and clarity these days. It’s day three and the paparazzi are in the car, hiding from the chill, waiting for Matt to come home and misbehave again, placing the pressure on him to explode while the revelations of what actually happened on New Year’s Eve in his studio come to light in the tabloids, a story that was perfectly corroborated by what he’d told me but which has taken on a life of its own in the press, with the prostitute in question selling her story and revelations of her ‘relationship’ with Tony coming to light. It’s a seedy affair that any radio station would back away from.

‘How’s your water fountain coming along?’ he asks.

‘Almost finished. I’m making a deck for it. With hammer and nails in hand. If my old colleagues could see me now.’

‘Those paparazzi better watch out.’

I pause and look around to see if he’s there, though I know from the background on the phone that he’s not.

At my silence he explains, ‘I saw the photos online. Your garden looked nice.’

‘Wish I’d finished the fountain though.’

I can hear the smile in his voice. ‘The rate you’re going, you will. So, the reason I was thinking of you is because I read today that the bluebell will struggle to maintain its range in the face of climate change. During periods of cold weather, spring flowers such as bluebells have already started the process of growth by preparing leaves and flowers in underground bulbs in summer and autumn.’

He sounds as if he’s reading and I sit down on my new garden bench and smile as I listen.

‘They are then able to grow in the cold of winter or early spring by using the resources stored in their bulb. With warmer springs induced by climate change, bluebells will lose their early start advantage and be out-competed by temperature-sensitive plants that start growing earlier than in the past.’

I’m not quite sure how to reply to that. ‘That’s a shame. But I don’t have bluebells in my garden.’ I look around, just to be sure.

‘It would be a shame, though, wouldn’t it, not to have a beautiful blue haze in the woodlands?’

It’s a beautiful image but why he thinks that in particular would convince me to take the job is beyond me.

‘Monday,’ I say and I hear the seriousness in my voice. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you.’

He stalls for a moment, sensing danger ahead. ‘Yes?’

‘I should have said it to you before, but erm…’ I clear my throat. ‘I’m on gardening leave. For one year. It’s up in November.’

‘November?’ he asks, in a tone that I know is not a happy one. He is too professional to show his anger, though he must be angry. I have wasted his time, I see that now, playing some little game with him while he was trying to do his job.

‘It would have been helpful to know this a few weeks ago, Jasmine.’ The way he says my name makes me cringe. I’m so mortified I can’t say anything. I feel like I’ve been caught with my pants down and the paparazzi are around me, snapping away. The one saving grace is that me and Monday are not face to face.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just…’ I can’t think of an excuse, but he leaves me hanging in silence, waiting for me to explain myself. This tells me he’s annoyed and wants an explanation. ‘I was embarrassed.’

It sounds like he’s stopped walking. ‘Why on earth would you be embarrassed?’ he asks, genuinely surprised, the annoyance gone.

‘Gee, I don’t know. I got fired and I can’t work for a year.’

‘Jasmine, that’s normal. That is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s a compliment that they don’t want you to work with anyone else.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

‘Well, you should. Between you and me, I wouldn’t mind getting paid to not work for a year.’ He laughs and I feel so much better already.

There’s a long silence. I’m not sure where to go with this. If this job is no longer a possibility then we will have no reason to meet again, but I want to meet him again so badly. Do I mention this? Do I ask him out? Is this goodbye? He saves me by speaking.

‘Do you want to go for the job, Jasmine?’

I envision the scenario where I say no. He hangs up, I never hear from him again, I return to my gardening leave, my future uncertain, my present boring and terrifying. I don’t want to go back to how I have felt these past few months.

‘Yes. I want a job,’ I say, then realise my mistake. ‘I mean, this job.’

‘Good,’ he says. ‘I’ll have to go back to them with this and see what they say, okay?’

‘Yes, of course. Sure.’ I straighten up, professional face back on. ‘I am really very sorry.’

I hide my face in my hands and cringe for a good five minutes and then, as a way to hide from the conversation I’ve just had, I return to my garden. Eventually all thoughts disappear from my mind as I focus on hammering my deck together, spaced a few inches apart, to place over the basin of water.

It is as I am stacking the Indian sandstone slabs on top of each other and marking the centre with a pencil in order to drill a hole for the pipe, that I suddenly drop the tools on the grass and hurry inside. I go straight to my wall of photographs beside the kitchen table and scan it, knowing exactly what to look for. When I see it, my hands quickly cover my mouth and I can’t believe how quickly I am overcome with emotion. That the image would mean so much to me and also that Monday would know that.

Beside where Monday had sat a few days ago is a photo of me, Heather, Dad and Mum – the only photo I have of the four of us together – taken on one of our regular trips to the Botanic Gardens. We’re all wearing big smiles for the camera, me with my front tooth missing, as we lie in a field of bluebells.

19

The photograph makes me think, it makes me think for a long time about a whole lot of things. This I do while completing my water fountain, and also while hammering together a trellis and painting it red in honour of Granddad Adalbert Mary and attaching vine eyes and wires to my house wall so that my newly planted winter jasmine can climb. And then, when I think I can’t think any more, and people are after me to make decisions about my life, I decide to lay more grass at the side of my house and sow a flower meadow. Eddie returns to dig and I’m no fool this time, he completes the small patch in one full day, I prepare the soil and the following week I sow a meadow seed mix including poppies, corn chamomile, ox-eye daisies and cornflowers. It is a small area, but I sow them beside the space I am keeping for the soon-to-be-delivered lean-to greenhouse which will stand against the free wall of my semi-detached house. To prevent birds from eating the seeds, one of my Sunday activities with Heather is to set up a series of strings with CDs threaded on them across the sown area. Even this we do with thought, choosing songs that we think will scare the birds away.

I plant, and I plant, and I plant. And as I plant, I think; except I’m not aware that I’m thinking. In fact, sometimes I am sure that I’m not thinking and yet suddenly a thought will come to me. It will arrive so suddenly and unexpectedly that I stand up straight, my aching back stretched, and I look around to see who it was or what it was that gave me that sudden thought and did anyone see me having it. March moves to April and I’m still thinking. I do the weeding. I protect the new growth from the cold snaps and while the days are gradually getting warmer there are still some strong winds and heavy showers. I think about my flowers when I’m out at night with friends, especially if there’s a particularly heavy rainstorm and people walk into the restaurant shaking off umbrellas and discarding sodden coats. The first thing I think about in the morning is my garden. I think about my garden when I’m lying in the arms of a man I met in a bar and listening to the wind howl outside his bedroom window and I want to be home with my garden, where things make sense. I keep on moving. I don’t want my grass to grow too long and then appear yellow when it’s cut. It can’t be neglected. I regularly rake out ‘thatch’, not wanting dead grass and mess to accumulate, hoping for healthier grass, for moss and weeds not to establish in it. And all the time I do it, I think.

The daffodils that once rose proud and tall from the ground, the first of the colour in the grey early spring, are now withered. The flowers are going over and so, with sadness, I snap the heads off behind the swollen parts; leaving the stalk intact. If the spent flowers are left on, the plant’s energy will be diverted into the production of seeds. By removing the dead heads the plant’s energy is instead diverted into the formation of next year’s flower bud within the bulb.

In the garden there is always movement, there is always growth. No matter how stuck in time I feel, I go outside and things are changing all around me. There are suddenly flowers where there was once just the tiniest bud, and the open flower will stare at me, wide open and proud at what it has done while we all slept.

Monday has confirmed that the job is to begin in November and he is currently looking for other candidates to offer them too, so the interview is put off until 9 June. I can’t wait; I long to get back to feeling like the old me again. I long for my year to be up, and though I have wished the year away on countless occasions I wonder what will I do when the time comes? In November it will be cold, dark, grey and stormy again. Of course that comes with its own beauty, but it will be time for me to make decisions about my life, hopefully begin the new job – if I get it. Suddenly I want the time to slow. I look at my transforming garden, the movement in the water fountain, the spring flowers that are raising their heads, and I realise that I can’t stop what is waiting for me. So much of gardening is about preparing for what is about to come next, what season, what elements, and I must now start doing that in my life.

Despite my fears that I would never hear from him again, I did hear from Monday, in fact we met on a few occasions to talk, though invariably we ended up talking about everything else but the job. I feel so comfortable with him, so at ease; there’s no need for pretence about my not working, the way there is around other people. Though I am enjoying my gardening, it does not take away from the moments when I still feel lonely and worthless; it doesn’t for a moment make me feel more secure about my future, it merely stops me dwelling on it. Monday, on the other hand, takes away my loneliness. His eagerness to meet and talk for any amount of time takes away my worthlessness. Truth be told – and I know this sounds the complete opposite to what I’ve been expressing – I wish there was no job, I wish that Monday and I could continue to meet like this, talking about the ways of the world, the things we want or don’t want, instead of the reality.

It is just an interview, it is not yet a job, so I’m not ready to make a decision about Caroline’s proposal. We have met on a few occasions about Gúna Nua, and I have helped her idea along without fully committing to a long-term involvement. This will make it possible for me to slip away if I must, but businesswise it is not the ideal situation for either of us. I know that it is not enough for us to be friends. I thought the same thing about Larry, who subsequently fired me and landed me with a one-year ‘prison’ sentence. A prison sentence that feels, on glorious days in my garden, like a gift – though he wouldn’t want to hear that. And so my present ticks along, sometimes nicely, other times with frustration, but my future is as uncertain as ever.

It has been over two months since the incident with Heather in Dad’s home. Heather has gone about her usual wonderful way of forgiving or forgetting or being seemingly unaffected, and her relationship with Dad has carried on the same as ever. Mine has not. Not speaking to him has been somewhat helpful, but in other ways it’s made things worse. It has meant I do not have to deal with him, and it has meant that I have become increasingly maddened by him as I continue the arguments in my head. But it also means that, in not seeing him, I have not seen my little sister Zara, and that is unacceptable. It is for her mostly that I pick up the phone. I arrange to meet them at the playground beside Howth pier. It is a bright day, though we need to wrap up against the chill of the sea wind. Our winter wardrobes have made way for lighter wear, spring coats are being aired or given their first outing, people lie out on the grass eating Beshoff’s fish and chips, the vinegar mixing with the salty air and making my mouth water.

‘Jasmine!’ I hear Zara before I see her and she comes running towards me for an embrace. I pick her up and spin her around, immediately feeling bad about not seeing her. There is no excuse, my behaviour towards her has been unforgivable. Her growth since I’ve seen her is a sign of our silence. Ten weeks is a long time in her short life.

It should be awkward between Dad and me, but it’s not because we immediately speak to each other through Zara. Dad begins it.

‘Tell Jasmine about how we fed the seals some fish.’

She does.

‘Tell Jasmine about how the fishermen let you hold the rod.’

She does.

Zara is the kind of child who seems to attract attention, always asked to be the magician’s assistant, allowed into the cockpit to meet the pilot, shown around professional kitchens by chefs. She is one of those children who exudes interest in life, engages with people, and in return people want to please her, reward her, impress her. Finally, when Dad and I can’t speak to each other through her any more, we have no choice but to stand side by side outside the playground and watch her fire herself around with her new best friends that she met two seconds ago.

He won’t bring anything up, I know that. He would rather we stand like this, in awkwardness, than risk talking, in awkwardness. Even when forced into a discussion on something, on the rare times he can’t escape it, his feelings on the issue would be limited. This is frustrating on the rare times I want to communicate about something important. I get this trait from him. When you have two people who don’t talk about things, the situation can be more explosive than with those who do. Or rather, implosive, because the war is within.

‘That incident with Ted Clifford wasn’t right,’ I say suddenly, unable to properly broach or phrase the subject.

‘He has a position for account director going. Forty K a year. He wanted to talk to you directly,’ he says, the anger in his voice. He didn’t need to build up to it, it was there ready, for whenever I brought it up. ‘You could have talked about it between yourselves. Not for everyone to hear at the table. A perfect opportunity. Do you know how many people would want that job?’

It’s not at all what I meant. I was referring to his treatment of Heather, his reaction to Heather, not about the job, which was another issue – a less important one, but one that was bothering me enough that I was planning to tackle it next.

‘I meant, with Heather.’ I look at him for the first time and the expression on his face reveals it’s a struggle for him to work out what I could be referring to. Eventually it comes to him.

‘I spoke to Heather about that the very next day. All over, Jasmine.’

‘And?’

‘And now I know the Circles concept.’

‘Now you know.’

‘Yes. Now,’ he says, glaring at me.

‘She’s thirty-four years old, we’ve been doing the Circles concept for quite some time.’

I should have said it louder, but I mumble it. I don’t even know if he hears. I hope he does, but I’m not able for this: to discuss, to confront. Or maybe I’m okay with confrontation but then all I want to do is back away like it never happened and I don’t exist. The child in me quivers a bit at having my dad angry with me, however much the teenager in me rebels. ‘You treat her like she’s different. Like she’s special.’

‘I do not. I treat her the same as everyone else and that’s what gets you mad. It’s you that treats her differently,’ he says. ‘And you should think about that. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t exactly practise what you preach. It’s always been one rule for you and another for everyone else. This Circles concept – seems to be different for you than for everybody else, because everyone and anyone who comes near you is orange. No, Zara love, don’t climb on that.’ He cuts the conversation short and runs to her aid.

‘Is that your granddad?’ a child asks, and Zara laughs as though she’s never heard such a ridiculous thing. ‘This is my daddy!’

They end up on a see-saw together, Dad’s gut barely able to squeeze behind the handles. As he goes down I see the bald patch in the back of his thinning hair. He does look like her granddad.

I’m quite stunned by what he has said to me. He said it so easily, without anger, which should make it easy to ignore, yet it isn’t. It’s the very calmness with which he said it that makes me listen, that makes me hear him loud and clear.

The Orange Wave Circle is the furthest circle away from the Purple Private Circle that represents the person concerned, in this case, me. It’s the circle for distant acquaintances, for those you have no physical or emotional contact with at all.

Everyone and anyone who comes near you is orange.

That’s not true, I want to shout at him. But I don’t know if that’s correct. Heather is the only person I have ever really kept close to me. Orange is certainly the circle I seem to have firmly planted him in. I came here to confront him about his own actions – no, I came to see Zara, but secondary to that was to make him see that his behaviour must change, I didn’t expect the tide to change, for me to be staring down the barrel of my own finger.

Though perhaps my red circle is the largest of all. Some people remain strangers forever.

Confused, I drive back to my garden with my tail between my legs. I go back to thinking. I must snap the dead heads off and prepare for summer.