Jackie was right: when I rang the buzzer, Ma came down to the hall door. She looked exhausted too, and she had lost weight since Saturday: at least one belly was missing. She eyed me for a moment, deciding which way to go. Then she snapped, “Your da’s asleep. Come on into the kitchen and don’t be making noise.” She turned around and stumped painfully back up the stairs. Her hair needed setting.
The flat stank of spilled booze, air freshener and silver polish. The Kevin shrine was even more depressing by daylight; the flowers were half dead, the Mass cards had fallen over and the electric candles were starting to fade and flicker. Faint, satisfied snores were trickling through the bedroom door.
Ma had every bit of silver she owned spread out on the kitchen table: cutlery, brooches, photo frames, mysterious pseudo-ornamental tat that had clearly spent a long time on the regift merry-go-round before falling off here. I thought of Holly, puffy with tears and rubbing furiously away at her dollhouse furniture. “Here,” I said, picking up the polishing cloth. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“You’ll only make a bags of it. The great clumsy hands on you.”
“Let me have a go. You can tell me where I’m going wrong.”
Ma shot me a suspicious look, but that offer was too good to pass up. “Might as well make yourself useful, I suppose. You’ll have a cup of tea.”
It wasn’t a question. I pulled up a chair and got started on the cutlery, while Ma bustled in cupboards. The conversation I wanted would have worked best as a confidential mother-and-daughter chat; since I didn’t have the equipment for that, a little joint housework would at least steer us towards the right vibe. If she hadn’t been doing the silver, I would have found something else to clean.
Ma said, by way of an opening salvo, “You went off very sudden, Monday night.”
“I had to go. How’ve you been getting on?”
“How d’you expect? If you wanted to know, you’d have been here.”
“I can’t imagine what this has been like for you,” I said, which may be part of the formula but was probably true. “Is there anything I can do?”
She threw tea bags into the pot. “We’re grand, thanks very much. The neighbors’ve been great: brought us enough dinners for a fortnight, and Marie Dwyer’s letting me keep them in her chest freezer. We’ve lived without your help this long, we’ll survive a bit longer.”
“I know, Mammy. If you think of anything, though, you just let me know. OK? Anything at all.”
Ma spun round and pointed the teapot at me. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can get a hold of your friend, him, what’s-his-name with the jaw, and you can tell him to send your brother home. I can’t get onto the funeral home about the arrangements, I can’t go to Father Vincent about the Mass, I can’t tell anyone when I’ll be burying my own son, because some young fella with a face like Popeye on him won’t tell me when he’ll be releasing the body-that’s what he called it. The brass neck of him. Like our Kevin’s his property.”
“I know,” I said. “And I promise you I’ll do my best. But he’s not trying to make your life any more difficult. He’s just doing his job, as fast as he can.”
“His job’s his problem, not mine. If he keeps us waiting any longer it’ll have to be a closed casket. Did you think of that?”
I could have told her the casket would probably have to be closed anyway, but we had already taken this line of conversation about as far as I felt like going. I said, “I hear you’ve met Holly.”
A lesser woman would have looked guilty, even just a flicker, but not my ma. Her chins shot out. “And about time! That child would’ve been married and giving me great-grandchildren before you’d have lifted a finger to bring her here. Were you hoping if you waited long enough I’d die before you had to introduce us?”
The thought had crossed my mind. “She’s pretty fond of you,” I said. “What do you think of her?”
“The image of her mammy. Lovely girls, the pair of them. Better than you deserve.”
“You’ve met Olivia?” I tipped my hat to Liv, mentally. She had skated around that one very prettily.
“Twice, only. She dropped Holly and Jackie down to us. Was a Liberties girl not good enough for you?”
“You know me, Ma. Always getting above myself.”
“And look where that got you. Are the two of yous divorced now, or are yous only separated?”
“Divorced. A couple of years back.”
“Hmf.” Ma’s mouth pursed up tight. “I never divorced your da.”
Which was unanswerable on so many levels. “True enough,” I said.
“Now you can’t take Communion.”
I knew better than to rise to that, but no one can get to you quite like family. “Ma. Even if I wanted to take Communion, and I don’t, the divorce wouldn’t be a problem. I can divorce myself into a coma for all the Church cares, as long as I don’t shag anyone who’s not Olivia. The problem would be the lovely ladies I’ve ridden since the divorce.”
