As far back as I can remember, my parents and the Dalys hated each other’s guts, for a vast tapestry of reasons that would burst a blood vessel in any outsider trying to understand them. Back when Rosie and I started going out I did some asking, trying to figure out why the idea sent Mr. Daly straight through the ceiling, but I’m pretty sure I only scratched the surface. Part of it had to do with the fact that the Daly men worked at Guinness’s, which put them a cut above the rest of us: solid job, good benefits, the chance of going up in the world. Rosie’s da was taking evening classes, talking about working his way up off the production line-I knew from Jackie that these days he had some kind of supervisor job, and that they had bought Number 3 off their landlord. My parents didn’t like people with Notions; the Dalys didn’t like unemployed alcoholic wasters. According to my ma, there was also an element of jealousy involved-she had popped out the five of us easy as pie, while Theresa Daly had only managed the two girls and no son for her fella-but if you stayed on this line for too long, she started telling you about Mrs. Daly’s miscarriages.
Ma and Mrs. Daly were on speaking terms, most of the time; women prefer to hate each other at close range, where you get more bang for your buck. I never saw my da and Mr. Daly exchange two words. The closest they got to communication-and I wasn’t sure how this related to either employment issues or obstetrical envy-was once or twice a year, when Da came home a little more thoroughly tanked than usual and staggered straight past our house, down to Number 3. He would sway in the road, kicking the railings and howling at Matt Daly to come out and fight him like a man, until Ma and Shay-or, if Ma was cleaning offices that night, Carmel and Shay and I-went out there and convinced him to come home. You could feel the whole street listening and whispering and enjoying, but the Dalys never opened a window, never switched on a light. The hardest part was getting Da around the bend in the stairs.
“Once we get in there,” I said to Kevin, when we had legged it through the rain and he was knocking on the door of Number 3, “you do the talking.”
That startled him. “Me? Why me?”
“Humor me. Just tell them how this thing showed up. I’ll take it from there.”
He didn’t look happy about it, but our Kev always was a people-pleaser, and before he could come up with a nice way to tell me to do my own dirty work, the door opened and Mrs. Daly peered out at us.
“Kevin,” she said. “How are-” and then she recognized me. Her eyes went round and she made a noise like a hiccup.
I said smoothly, “Mrs. Daly, I’m sorry to disturb you. Could we come in for a moment?”
She had a hand up to her chest. Kev had been right about the fingernails. “I don’t…”
Every cop knows how to get in a door past someone who’s not sure. “If I could just bring this in out of the rain,” I said, juggling the case around her. “I think it’s important for you and Mr. Daly to have a look at it.”
Kevin trailed after me, looking uncomfortable. Mrs. Daly screeched “Matt!” up the stairs without taking her eyes off us.
“Ma?” Nora came out of the front room, all grown up and wearing a dress that showed it. “Who-Jaysus. Francis?”
“In the flesh. Howya, Nora.”
“Holy God,” Nora said. Then her eyes went over my shoulder, to the stairs.
I had remembered Mr. Daly as Schwarzenegger in a cardigan, but he was on the short side of medium, a wiry, straight-backed guy with close-cut hair and a stubborn jaw. It got tighter while he examined me, taking his time. Then he told me, “We’ve got nothing to say to you.”
I cut my eyes sideways at Kevin. “Mr. Daly,” he said, fast, “we really, really need to show you something.”
“You can show us anything you like. Your brother needs to get out of my house.”
“No, I know, and he wouldn’t have come, only we didn’t have a choice, honest to God. This is important. Seriously. Could we not…? Please?”
He was perfect, shuffling his feet and shoving his floppy fringe out of his eyes, all embarrassed and clumsy and urgent; kicking him out would have been like kicking a big fluffy sheepdog. No wonder the kid was in sales. “We wouldn’t bother you,” he added humbly, for good measure, “only that we don’t know what else to do. Just five minutes?”
After a moment, Mr. Daly gave a stiff, reluctant nod. I would have paid good money for a blow-up Kevin doll that I could carry around in the back of my car and whip out in emergencies.
