When All Is Said(44)

‘Never mind that now,’ she said looking a bit hassled herself, ‘what do you need to get this thing off your sister-in-law?’

‘A quiet room should do us,’ I said, trying to sound in control, hoping my voice wasn’t letting me down, ‘five minutes tops, Emily, and he’ll have his coin back.’

‘Right, follow me.’

She made a quick stop to explain the situation to ‘Uncle’, which allowed me time to retrieve my wife and Noreen. Before long we three were in the meeting room Emily had used the night of the dinner if I wasn’t mistaken. This time the tables were set up in a U-shape. Fizzy water sat at each placing of ‘Rainsford House Hotel’ stationery. As soon as the door closed, I fell into a chair, like I’d just run a marathon. Hyperventilating, I pulled at the neck of my shirt, trying to release my tie. I managed to get up and open a window.

‘Maurice, oh my goodness, are you alright?’ That was your mother. ‘Oh my Lord! I’ll get help.’ But I held her back with all the strength I had in me.

‘Sit,’ I commanded, opening one of the bottles of water laid out around the board table and taking a seat myself. I gulped at it. I feckin’ hate fizzy water.

‘Sadie, did you tell him who we were? Do you think he has any idea?’ I asked, a bit calmer now.

‘What are you going on about Maurice, who?’

‘Your man, Thomas. The man Noreen took the coin from.’

‘I certainly didn’t say anything. Oh, that’s him isn’t it? He’s your bully from all those years ago.’

‘And that’s his feckin’ coin as well, the one Noreen has in her hand.’

We glanced over to where she sat by the window engrossed by it, eyes for nothing else.

‘But Maurice, did you give the coin back to him? I thought you still had it? That is, despite my feelings on the matter. I always said—’

‘But this is the thing, Sadie, I didn’t give it back. And what’s more, I don’t think he recognises me, ’cause if he did he’d possibly be screaming that here’s the thief who stole the feckin’ thing in the first place.’

‘What do you mean “stole”?’

‘Found, whatever, does it matter?’

‘But, Maurice. This doesn’t make sense. How could he have it, if it’s still up in our house?’

‘I don’t know!’ I blasted back at her, rising to pace the room.

I’d figure out this man’s game if I had to stay there all day, drinking posh fizzy water and listening to Noreen’s damned ‘sparkle, sparkle’ over and over again. It took all of my power not to roar at her as I passed behind her seat of reverence to the bloody thing. I looked down, mouthing a curse at her and it. And that was when I had to grip the back of her chair to hold myself up for fear of falling down. I leaned in closer to ensure that what I thought I saw was in fact the case. In her hand she held two identical coins. I looked and looked at them, as she turned them over. There could be no denying, they were the same. Two gold coins, with the same heads and markings.

‘Noreen,’ I said, when my power of speech eventually returned, ‘there are two coins.’

‘Maurice’s sparkle and Noreen’s sparkle.’

‘Maurice’s sparkle?’

‘Yes, Noreen took Maurice’s special sparkle and now Noreen has her new sparkle.’

‘OK. So, Noreen, let me just get this straight, you borrowed my one from my drawer and then you got the other one from the man outside, is that right?’

Noreen nodded.

‘Noreen’s sparkle,’ she added.

The penny finally dropped and I slouched in the chair by her side with utter relief. Laughing, I wiped the worry away and explained it all to my confused wife. Noreen, I told her, must have entered the hotel with my coin in her pocket, having ‘borrowed’ it again from my drawer and had then come across Thomas parading about showing an exact replica to all in the bar. What a man, I thought. Never to be outdone. Never to admit defeat – he had to get a copy of the thing, well crafted though it was.

‘This one, Maurice’s. This one, Noreen’s.’

She handed over mine, as it were. How she knew the difference, I didn’t know.

‘Now Noreen, you do know you have to give your one back.’

‘Noreen’s,’ she stated, hiding it away from me in the folds of her coat.

I looked to Sadie and recognised the panic. Sadie rounded the table and sat the other side of her sister. Flanked from both sides now we started our negotiations. We walked out of that room ten minutes later with a deal under our belts. The coin was to be relinquished to Thomas in return for Noreen keeping mine, on the understanding that it would always live in her bedside locker in our house, with an additional sweetener of three two Euro coins that we scrambled together between my wallet and Sadie’s purse.

‘Where’s himself?’ I asked Emily, as soon as I found her, twirling his coin around in my fingers.

‘He was around there a moment ago. I see you’ve managed to retrieve it then. I can give it back to Uncle, Mr Hannigan, while you and Mrs Hannigan have some lunch on us. I’ll set you up in the snug. It will be nice and quiet for you there.’ Her face bore the worry of what might happen should we men meet again.