Chestnut Street (36 page)

“What will we do for Christmas?” I asked her.

“What would you
like
to do, Dekko?” she asked.

She looked very tired and pale. So I didn’t want to add to her
personal problems and I said I was cool about it all, and even though it meant nothing, that pleased her a lot.

And every Saturday I met Dad at eleven and we went somewhere nice.

He used to look up the papers and ask other people where was a nice place to bring a nine-year-old and we had good times. And I was always back to Mum at six o’clock on the dot.

But he never took me to his flat so I didn’t know if there was a room with Dekko on the door there or not.

I wanted to show him my room but he said that we shouldn’t annoy my mother over something small like that.

I thought it was quite big, showing my dad my new room. But I had done enough, so I said nothing.

Just about Christmas, when Dad took me back home, Mum was standing at the door.

“Let’s talk Christmas Day,” she said in a very hard voice.

“I’m available all day, all night,” Dad said.

“Yeah, except when the bimbo wants you to play party games with her teenage friends.”

“Dekko comes first,” Dad said.

“Oh, sure.”

“They said reasonable access,” he said.

“They also said holidays by agreement,” Mum said.

I couldn’t bear it anymore.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“You did nothing,” they spoke in unison.

“So why is all this happening?”

They had no answer. It was very cold on the doorstep.

“Come in,” Mum said.

“Would it annoy you, Mum, if I show Dad my room?”

“No, Dekko, please take your dad and show him your room.” Dad admired everything. Then we went downstairs.

“Would you like a drink, Dad?” I suggested.

“Beer or sherry?” Mum said.

“A small sherry would be lovely,” Dad said. And again it all seemed so natural.

“Could I ask you what happened?” I asked. “I’m old enough to accept that you’re separated and going to be divorced—can’t you tell me
why
?”

They couldn’t, apparently.

“You see, not long ago you told me that you loved each other, and that you were each other’s sunshine. You used to sing that song, ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ And now you don’t. And it must be my fault. I was thinking maybe if I went away it would be all right again.”

“Why do you think that, Dekko?” my father asked.

“Because you told me I was the result of you loving each other—that’s why I came on earth. So if you don’t love each other anymore there must be something wrong with me. Mustn’t there?”

After a long time, Mum spoke.

“You’re right, Dekko, I was indeed your dad’s sunshine, but I wasn’t his
only
sunshine, which is the next line of the song. That was the problem, you see.”

“But didn’t he make you happy when skies were gray?” I asked.

I knew this song very well.

“Yes he did.”

“And your mum
is
my sunshine. I just got involved with someone else who was only star shine, not nearly as bright and warm and necessary. That was the problem, you see,” Dad said.

“Is that the bimbo?” I asked.

And they both laughed.

A real laugh.

“She does have a name,” Dad said.

Mum said, “About Christmas?”

“Yes?” Dad was full of hope.

“Come anytime you like, stay as long as you like, take Dekko out, let him have an hour’s stimulating chat with the bimbo, if you want. The main thing is that Dekko never, ever believes
that he was anything except the result of our love for each other. Because that is so true.”

Dad raised his glass to Mum, too full of emotion to speak.

Harry says I’m not to hold my breath.

They’re not going to get back together; people don’t, once they’ve sold the main home.

Harry is very sharp—he knows these things.

But it’s not important. I know now that it wasn’t my fault and that, whatever “reasonable access” is going to be, it’s going to be okay.

They went on a week’s holiday every year.

Not abroad, since Harry Kelly didn’t like foreign food and Nessa Kelly was afraid to fly.

But there were plenty of places in Ireland if you looked around you. One year they had been to Lisdoonvarna and another to Youghal. They had found nice bed-and-breakfast places and always kept the card in case they went back again. But they never did.

In twenty-four years of summer vacations they never once went back to anywhere, no matter how wonderful they said it was at the time.

This year the research had come up with Clifden. They would drive there from Chestnut Street on a Tuesday, starting early, leaving plenty of time. They would pack sandwiches and a flask of coffee, because you never knew. They began to pack the suitcases on the Friday before they left. Better to pack early, Nessa said, because you never knew what you might forget. Harry liked to pack from a list. Wiser to write it out and tick each item off as it went into the case, he said; otherwise you could easily think that things were packed when they weren’t.

Nessa brought their five pieces of silver to the bank, each one
wrapped in a piece of cotton and then all zipped into a little yellow bag.

For the rest of the year they lived in the bottom of a cupboard. No point at all in tempting burglars by displaying them on shelves or anything. Harry went round all the window locks and tested the alarm system several times. Better be sure than sorry, he always said. They wished they had a reliable neighbor who might water their little garden but sadly it was only a wild, unkempt girl with red hair and a boyfriend who stayed over nights in Number 26. No point in asking
her
to do anything for you.

They nodded at her courteously—always better to make friends of these kind of people rather than enemies. She used to shout, “Howaya, Nessa? Harry?” which was very forward of her, since she must have been less than half their age.

The evening before the Kellys set out for Clifden they had everything ready for the off. Sandwiches in the fridge, two eggs to boil and just enough bread to toast for breakfast. The house would be left neat and tidy to welcome them back a week later. Then Harry would have five full days to recover before he went back to work. It was a long, long journey—they knew that. They would both be very tired.

There was a ring at the door. They looked at each other in alarm. Eight o’clock at night! Nobody would call at that hour.

“Who is it?” Harry asked fearfully.

“Melly,” the voice said. “Can I come in, please, Harry?”

They didn’t know anyone called Melly.

“From next door,” the voice said. “It’s urgent!”

They let her in. Her red hair was wild, she wore a horrid purple top that exposed her middle bits and jeans with patches on them. Her face was very pale.

“I just don’t want to be alone just now. Could I stay for an hour, please? I won’t be any trouble. Please, Nessa? Harry?”

She looked from one to the other.

“Are you unwell?” Nessa asked. “Should you go to a doctor? The hospital?”

“No, I’m frightened. Mike, my fellow, he’s been smoking bad stuff—God knows what he might do to me. I don’t want him to find me at home.”

“Won’t he come looking for you here?” Harry was very alarmed at inviting such trouble under his roof.

“No, he’d never think I’d come here,” she said.

“Well …” They were doubtful.

“Oh, go on, Harry, Nessa, you can keep your eye on me. I’m not going to go off with your silver or anything. Just an hour or two or whatever.”

“I don’t know,” Harry said.

“Harry, you’re a decent man. How would you feel if I were beaten to death and you could have saved me?”

They found themselves nodding.

“But we can’t stay up late because we’re going to the west tomorrow, and by the time we get to Clifden we could be very tired.”

“I’ll just get my bag,” Melly said and hopped back home for a giant lime-green sack.

“I’ve everything here,” she said, as an explanation, when she turned.

“But … um … Melly, we told you we’re going to Clifden tomorrow!”

“I’ll come with you!” Melly said, overjoyed. “He’ll
never
think of looking for me in Clifden—it’s perfect.” She smiled from one to the other.

She slept on the sofa with her things strewn over the floor. During the night they heard him shouting and looking for her.

“Do you think we should
do
anything?” Harry whispered to Nessa in bed.

“We
are
doing something—we’re driving her to the other side of the country,” Nessa said, trying to put the man’s raised voice out of her mind.

Next morning Melly took all the hot water for her shower and used the nice new towels they had prepared ready for their return. She made them breakfast, however, saying that since there were only two eggs she had made an omelet and divided it into three.

Harry and Nessa looked at each other, aghast. Their whole plans had been thrown totally out of order by this ridiculous girl whom they hardly knew. By now they should have been in their car and beyond Lucan. Instead they were still at home, plotting how to get Melly into the car.

“He could be looking out the window so we’d better take no risks,” Melly warned.

“You could lay a rug over me and I could crawl very slowly into the backseat.”

Then there was her lime-green sack—he would certainly recognize that. So Harry had to hide it in a black plastic bag.

“By the time we get to Clifden we’ll be ready to go to a mental hospital,” Nessa said into Harry’s ear.

“If we’d ever get there,” Harry whispered. “She’s talking of doing things en route.” That was something Harry and Nessa never did, visit anything en route. They just got their heads down and drove there, wherever there was. It didn’t look as if it was going to be like that this time.

When they finally got away and Melly emerged from the rug it was nearly time to put on their audiocassette and listen to an improving book. By the time they got to Clifden this year they would have heard the three-and-a-half-hour version of Thackeray’s
Vanity Fair
. But they had reckoned without Melly. She didn’t like it at all. She did, on the other hand, like the scenery and the places they passed. She chattered nonstop about the housing estates, the road signs, the huge walled demesnes, the factories
and the traffic, so that Harry and Nessa lost completely the story of Becky Sharp and were forced to turn it off.

“That’s better,” Melly said. “Now we can chat properly.”

She phoned ahead on her mobile to friends in Mullingar and said she wanted them to prepare lunch, that she was bringing two pals called Harry and Nessa.

They protested vigorously. By the time they got to Clifden it would be very late. And they did have sandwiches.

But Melly would have none of it. And in Mullingar the two hippies who lived in a squat had made a magnificent lentil-and-tomato dish with lots of crusty bread. The hippies were perfectly at ease with Harry and Nessa and asked them to deliver some honey to Shay in Athlone because he had a bad throat.

“But we might not stop in Athlone,” poor Harry began.

“Normally you wouldn’t,” they agreed with him. “But because of Shay’s sore throat you will this time, won’t you?”

Shay was very welcoming, and he made tea and toasted scones. He said that Harry and Nessa were everyday angels—that was the only phrase for it—rescuing Melly from that monster.

“If she hadn’t met two everyday angels like you he’d have trashed her, you know. He’ll probably have trashed her house and yours as well when you get back,” Shay said cheerfully.

Nessa and Harry looked at each other. Their glance asked the question: Should they go home? Now, this minute? There was no time. Melly was on the mobile phone to Athenry. And then they were waving goodbye to Shay and back in the car heading west.

They were expected in this pub in Athenry, you see—there would be chicken in a basket for them when they got there and a great gig.

“By the time we get to Clifden they’ll have given away our room,” said Harry in a voice that sounded like a great wail.