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  ‘OK,’ Ronan agreed.

  One night and two days. He hoped it would work. Rosie was The One. It was just that she was a bit shrill and had ideas of what a marriage should be. Fine ideas if you didn’t have to earn a living …

  Ronan took an early flight and looked at the businessmen with their briefcases and some businesswomen too. Studying files, getting themselves ready for some meeting or other. Well-dressed, finely groomed, people of power. He envied them their confidence. They would have been able to sort this thing out with Rosie in two minutes.

  He got the underground from the airport into central London and began to look for a good place for lunch. Rosie was going to give up her afternoon lecture so that they could talk. He needed to find a place that was romantic and attractive, not somewhere they would be barked at and their plates snatched away. He headed towards Covent Garden as he had heard it was romantic and nice to walk around. He found a place with vines all over it, which looked just right. Then he saw the prices on the menu. The cost of one starter was greater than Ronan had ever paid for any meal for two. He moved swiftly on.

  He finally found a small Italian place that he could afford.

  ‘I am inviting someone to lunch and it may go on a long time,’ Ronan said.

  ‘Signor … I ask you, when the good God made time, did he not make plenty of it? What is life if we do not have enough time? You stay as long as you like.’

  Ronan stood there, stunned.

  That was it.

  Time.

  That was what was missing in their lives. That was at the root of it all. He booked the table and called his wife.

  ‘I’ve found a lovely Italian restaurant for lunch,’ he said.

  ‘Will you want to go out to eat again tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘Why don’t we wait and see? We have plenty of time. You know, I was thinking, what is life if we don’t have enough time?’

  ‘That’s a bit of a change of direction for you,’ Rosie said.

  ‘See you at one-thirty,’ Ronan said.

  Text from Anthony to Rosie:

  You asked me to tell you about the lunch. It was weird. That’s what it was. We were all meant to bring presents like a birthday. It’s as if she’s adopted those two, Lily and Angela. They’re her new family. But, wait for it, she and Da have painted up the scullery all red and white, with a bed in it in case any of us ever need a bed overnight, and they’ve put all our clothes on rails and in boxes. It’s like a posh left-luggage place. Come home soon, Rosie. You might make some sense out of it all.

  Love, Anthony

  Text to Rosie from Helen:

  They have both gone utterly mad. All our clothes are in the back kitchen. They talk about us all ‘finding our own places’. I thought we had found our own place and it was at home. Why have they changed? Was it Dad losing his job? Or Mam getting the change of life? Whatever it is, it’s not good. Wish you were at home. You might understand.

  Love, Helen

  Rosie read the two texts and was pleased to think the others thought she would understand what was going on, but at the same time she felt relieved that she wasn’t there. She wished she could talk to Mam about this meeting with Ronan. Mam didn’t say much but she listened, and somehow it straightened things out, just having her there listening.

  Mam didn’t really understand why Rosie had left Ronan. She used to say things like ‘You used to love him’ or ‘When did you stop loving him?’ That wasn’t what it was all about; it was about the empty evenings, and Ronan coming in dog-tired, and the ironing. All that ironing.

  If Mam couldn’t understand, and Ronan was blind to it all, how was there any way of making things better?

  And now it seemed as if Mam and Dad had gone right round the bend and she had no home to go back to either.

  Dee was finishing up at Miss Mason’s apartment. She looked at her watch and sighed. Just about now Ronan and Rosie would be meeting for lunch. It would probably end up as a screaming match. Or, rather, Rosie screaming and Ronan shrugging his shoulders and saying he didn’t know what it was all about. He didn’t go with other women, he didn’t get drunk and abusive – would she like him to do these things?

  Such a waste, Dee thought to herself. Two young people who should be building up a home and having a family.

  But then having a family wasn’t all a bed of roses. Dee had seen the faces of her son and daughter yesterday when she had shown them their clothes all neatly stacked waiting to be taken away. She felt very guilty, and could hardly sleep, thinking about it. The guilt was not that she was making her children leave home. It was that she hadn’t done it sooner or made an arrangement with them that they needed to pay something towards their keep. That had been her great mistake.

  If she had her life over again, she would have made all this very clear to them from the start.

  It was very harsh to move the goalposts for them so suddenly and Dee felt bad about it. She was muttering to herself when Miss Mason asked what she was saying.

  ‘A sort of prayer, I think.’

  ‘You don’t need to pray, you’re a saint already, or so Lily says. Didn’t the lunch work out perfectly yesterday?’

  ‘It went fine. Everyone seemed to enjoy it but Anthony and Helen were a bit shell-shocked.’

  ‘You invited them again for next Sunday?’

  ‘Yes. I told them we would be having beef, but I don’t think it’s enough, Miss Mason.’

  ‘Enough?’

  ‘To make up for throwing them out. Yes, that’s the way they see it. They are being thrown out of their own home. Oh I do wish that I had handled it differently. Told them that life was tough and you have to go out and work for money.’ Dee looked very miserable.

  ‘Oh, Dee, come on now. You have everything going fine, stop worrying, and think about the next part of our plan, to get work for Liam. Do you have those little cards?’

  Dee handed over the little cards they had got printed. They had Liam’s name and mobile phone number and the fact that he was a reliable, fully qualified electrician who had worked many years for the same firm in the building trade. This would let people know he could be trusted, that he wasn’t a cowboy. Or that was what they hoped.

  ‘I’ll bring the subject up at my bridge session this afternoon,’ Miss Mason said. ‘And tomorrow, when I’m at the Residents’ Association meeting. There has to be someone there who needs plugs changed or a new television set tuned in.’

  ‘You are very good, Miss Mason,’ Dee said from the heart.

  ‘No, actually, I’m not good but I am tough and that helps a lot in life.’

  ‘But I don’t want to win by scoring over my children,’ Dee said.

  ‘No, no, that’s not what you are about. But you do want to keep an eye on them and make them feel welcome. That’s why we decided on these Sunday lunches.’

  ‘I wish I could believe they will work,’ Dee sighed.

  Helen was in the school staffroom eating a sandwich. There was always plenty of food in Marco and Maud’s kitchen: she just took some more slices of salami and cheese and a bap. It saved paying for lunch.

  Her mobile phone rang; it was the travel agency. It had all been sorted, there had been an insurance policy written into the agreement, Helen was off the hook. She felt a huge weight rise from her shoulders, and suddenly she was able to breathe properly again.

  Helen was longing to tell someone.

  She couldn’t say anything to her colleagues. They had all said she was mad in the first place to promise the children a holiday that she could not deliver.

  She didn’t want to tell Mam and Dad. They would advise her to open a proper savings’ account, to be sensible and to get a mortgage on a house.

  But she did need a nice party frock to go out and celebrate, so she set out for St Jarlath’s Crescent to pick something up from her rail. Helen still had her own key. At least Mam had not asked for them back yet.

  Just outside the house Helen met Fiona Carroll, Dr Decl
an’s wife. She herself was a nurse, and always had a word for everyone.

  Helen wondered about Fiona’s life. She worked hard up at the hospital. She had two small children and her husband worked all the hours God sent – but she never moaned and grizzled about it like Rosie did. She always seemed happy and today she had one baby in a pram and a toddler running beside her. Helen couldn’t remember if the new baby was a boy or a girl, she must be careful not to say the wrong name.

  ‘Hi, Helen,’ Fiona greeted her. ‘I haven’t seen you around for a while. Your mam said you were sharing a flat with friends.’

  ‘Yeah, sort of,’ Helen said.

  ‘It’s good to have all that freedom, isn’t it?’ Fiona asked.

  ‘Sure, in a way. It’s different, though.’

  ‘I know, and it can be expensive having your own place.’

  ‘Well, it can be, certainly.’

  ‘How much do you pay a week?’ Fiona asked, interested.

  ‘That’s hard to say,’ Helen stumbled.

  ‘Sorry, maybe you think I’m pushy. It’s just my friend Barbara’s letting a room and she doesn’t know what to charge.’

  ‘I’m their guest at the moment,’ Helen said in a burst of honesty.

  ‘Oh – that’s nice.’ Fiona seemed startled.

  ‘Fiona, did you pay your mother and father when you lived with them?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Well, yes, once I started to work, of course I did, every week. They put it in a savings account for me. And it added up. They gave it all back to me on my wedding day. I cried my eyes out …’

  ‘And your friend, Barbara, did she pay at home?’

  ‘What is this, Helen? Of course she did. Everyone does.’

  ‘Sure. I was just checking that’s all …’

  And Helen went glumly into the house where she and her sister and brother had never paid one cent towards living expenses.

  Rosie and Ronan were sitting contentedly in the restaurant, watching the busy lunch trade of business people and tourists. They sipped a cold white wine and ate pasta. It was like the old days.

  They talked easily, there was no confrontation.

  ‘Tell me about the scullery that they’ve painted white,’ she said.

  ‘It looks great, like a real room. Your clothes are all there hanging on a rail.’

  ‘They’d better be there,’ Rosie muttered darkly.

  ‘I asked your mam and dad why hadn’t they ever done it up before.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘They said they couldn’t afford to before.’

  ‘So how can they afford it now? Did they win the lotto?’

  ‘No, Rosie, they got some rent for the first time. It made all the difference.’

  There was a little silence between them.

  ‘That was a good question to ask,’ Rosie said grudgingly.

  ‘Maybe you should have … we should have …’

  ‘Don’t tell me now, when it’s all too late,’ Rosie said.

  ‘I was hoping it’s not too late for us,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I will iron my own shirts, whatever way you like, once a week, once a night, whatever suits you. I’ll insist I have at least two nights a week where I do not go out at all and two more where I get home by eight …’

  She looked at him silently.

  ‘I don’t know what exactly I’m doing wrong that’s upsetting you so much, Rosie. Honestly I don’t. If I say I love you, you say it’s just words. If I don’t say I love you, then you say I’m cold and unfeeling. Remember when we were first together? You loved me then …’

  ‘I know,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘So is there anything I could do to make it right again?’

  Rosie looked at him for what seemed a long time. She reached across the table and held both his hands.

  ‘You did it. You made up all that business about having to do some work in London, you put your job at risk and came over to see me.’

  Ronan still wasn’t sure. She was smiling and had tears in her eyes but that could mean anything.

  ‘So this means …?’ He stopped and waited.

  ‘It means I’m coming home, Ronan.’

  Anthony was not a fusspot, he said, but really and truly the lads’ place was filthy. The bath had a black ring around it, and the kitchen was filled with the empty or nearly empty containers of takeaway food. If they missed bin night, which happened regularly, it meant that this rubbish could hang around for two weeks.

  Anthony found himself filling black bags every Tuesday just to keep the place from becoming a fever pit. They were a great bunch of guys and there was music day and night. But there was also a lot of smoking, a lot of drinking and very late nights.

  He remembered the clean kitchen back home in St Jarlath’s Crescent. When they had that lunch there with the roast lamb and things, it had all seemed like a high-class restaurant compared to where he was living now. And he was completely broke from buying food and drink. Amazingly, all the other lads had paid something at home. He never had. Maybe that’s why Mam had thrown them out.

  He had a job two nights a week, collecting glasses in a pub. Not real money, but enough to pay something, if that’s what it was all about.

  He needed to get his head clear.

  It was hard to do with the fumes coming from the kitchen.

  Helen found her party frock, and left a note for Mam on the kitchen table, thanking her again for the lovely Sunday lunch. Then she went and bought a bottle of champagne to take back to Maud and Marco’s.

  As soon as she opened the door, she told them that she wanted to celebrate the fact that she wasn’t bankrupt and to ask them what they considered a fair rent for her stay. She didn’t get to the end of her sentence as they cried they had something to celebrate too. Maud’s twin brother Simon had come back for a visit.

  And there he was, the boy she remembered from years back, but not serious and tense as he used to be. He was relaxed and tanned and … well … glorious.

  ‘Hello, Simon,’ she said, feeling that any minute she might faint.

  ‘Helen, you look terrific,’ he said, smiling at her.

  Maud and Marco looked at each other in surprise.

  It had actually happened. Simon had at last met a girl he was interested in. Even though it was their troubled, tight-fisted tenant, she was a girl …

  Chapter Nine

  Then everything began to move very quickly indeed.

  Dee told Josie that it was like when they turned on fast forward in a video. People were running in and out of the house all the time. It was impossible to keep up.

  Ronan came back from London with a great smile on his face and began to collect Rosie’s clothes from the rail in the back room. Dee watched while he lovingly packed Rosie’s shoes in boxes and her handbags into clear plastic bags. He asked Dee for lessons in ironing and watched gravely as she showed him how to position the collars.

  ‘There’s more to it than I thought,’ he said.

  Dee actually felt that there was less to it than anyone thought, but wisely said nothing.

  Ronan also asked her how to make a good casserole. ‘I want to spend quality time with Rosie in the kitchen,’ he said.

  Again, Dee wondered why on earth he should want this, but patiently showed him how to make a few simple dishes. He was as grateful as if he had been given the deeds of a house.

  Anthony asked her advice about clearing up a very dirty flat. Dee offered to go and help him on the premises, but he said no, if she did that once they would expect it all the time. So she listed some detergents and disinfectants as well as cleaning materials. She suggested that he get a few big buckets and line them with black bags and that he make a list of who did what.

  ‘They wouldn’t take any notice, Mam.’

  ‘Then you could live with different people maybe?’

  ‘I like them, Mam, we play great music – it’s just that they don’t seem to notice the sta
te of the place. What do you think I should do?’

  ‘I know what you should do, which is what I told you already. Just once. Clean it, sort out the cleaning rota, and they could well be so pleased they’ll keep it that way.’

  ‘But you see, Mam—’ he began.

  ‘I know, Anthony, I know they might get annoyed with you … There might be a lot of fuss, it’s kind of easier to leave things the way they are.’

  He was surprised that she understood. Then a thought came to him.

  ‘Was that the way it was with us, when we all lived here?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit like that, yes. Why disturb things? Anything for an easy life.’

  ‘And what changed it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not any one thing. Just a feeling, you know, that it was always going to be like this. No milk in the fridge, no one doing anything, no one paying anything, and me getting more bitter and twisted every day. I had thought it would be different, a bit shinier somehow.’

  ‘Sorry, Mam.’

  ‘No, it was all my fault. And if you let those guys live in filth around you, then it’s your fault. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘What’s the best thing for burned saucepans, Mam?’ he asked.

  ‘Cooking over a low heat and taking the pan off on time,’ she said.

  ‘I mean the ones that are burned already,’ he said, sadly.

  ‘Wire wool and a scourer,’ Dee suggested.

  Anthony listened as if this was divine wisdom.

  ‘You’re great, Mam,’ he said.

  ‘I am,’ Dee said happily. ‘That’s what I am, I’m great.’

  Helen came back with all her clothes.

  ‘I don’t want my old room back, Mam,’ she said immediately.

  ‘No, indeed,’ Dee said.

  ‘But you did say something about the bed in the scullery—’

  ‘The back room,’ Dee corrected.