Lying in Wait(55)

Saturday started well. Mrs Gough piled my plate high with bacon and sausages for breakfast, but I quelled my appetite with two pints of water and didn’t gorge myself like I had the previous evening. Bridget chatted about her new friend Karen and showed her mother some of the photos she had taken of her.

‘Well, isn’t she just a smashing-looking girl? That’s good enough for a magazine, isn’t it, Maureen?’

Indeed it was. It hadn’t even been one of the posed shots, but it was the best of them. It was a close-up shot of Karen sitting on the blanket in Stephen’s Green, unscrewing the cap of the flask. She had been laughing at something I’d said. Her beautiful hair contrasted with the spring green of the trees behind her, and she looked entirely natural and without blemish. It had been just before the detective’s interruption. Bridget thought that she had lost one of the prints a week or two earlier. It was in a hole in the wall behind my writing desk at Avalon.

Mr Gough asked politely what our plans were for the day. Bridget said we were going to watch Josie play a camogie match and then visit her grandfather in a nursing home on the outskirts of town. I smiled broadly, as if there were nothing I would rather do. I could feel them all warming to me. It didn’t take much. They were inclined to be generous and forgiving, but I realized that I wouldn’t easily get a chance to run to a postbox on my own.

On the sidelines of a camogie pitch in the drizzle, I struggled to keep warm. The game was, as all sports are to me, unremarkable. Sweaty, red-faced, aggressive teenagers wielding sticks and running around in the mud. Afterwards, we took Josie to a café.

‘You were the best, wasn’t she, Laurence?’

‘You were,’ I agreed.

‘Are you going to eat that much again tonight, because Mam has to go to the shops again if you do?’

‘Josie!’

‘I’m only asking.’

‘No, I don’t know what happened to me last night. I have a metabolism disorder, I think.’

‘Meta … what?’

‘Josie, now please leave Laurence alone.’

I made up some semi-truthful story about my body being unable to process quantities, which meant that sometimes I was ravenously hungry, but assured her that it didn’t happen often.

‘God, you must be mortified that it happened on your first night here. Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to Mam later. She was just worried that the housekeeping money wouldn’t last the week.’

‘I really am sorry about that.’

Bridget was grateful.

Later, she and I walked half an hour out towards the Roscommon road to see her granddad, passing two postboxes on the way. I dared not stop. It was a grim place, a state-owned nursing home. Bridget’s grandfather sat in a high-backed chair among all the other shells who had once been people. Bridget took photos of the liver spots on his hand and of the adjacent tea trolley. Granddad didn’t know who Bridget was, but Bridget talked patiently to him, answering his endlessly repeated questions: ‘Are you Peter? Where’s Daddy? Are we going home now? Where’s Peter?’

Bridget introduced me. ‘Granddad, this is Laurence, my boyfriend.’

But Granddad never even turned his head to look at me until we were leaving and then, out of nowhere, he turned towards me, stared for a few seconds and then looked back at Bridget. ‘I don’t like him. There’s something wrong with him.’ A pause and then, ‘Where’s Peter? Are we going home now?’

Bridget laughed it off. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ Actually, he did.

Afterwards, I suggested taking a short tour of the town myself, but Bridget insisted that her dad was going to give me the tour next morning, and slipped her arm through mine. There was no getting away.

That evening, at tea, or dinner, I chatted cordially and was careful about how much I ate. Everybody tried hard to hide their relief. They were relaxed enough to start asking more personal questions.

‘Exactly how long have you been going out together?’ asked Maureen.

‘It’ll be two years in September.’ I was surprised when Bridget said that. Had it really been that long?

Josie started to hum ‘Here Comes the Bride’. This time, everyone ignored her. Mr Gough went to the pub for his two routine Saturday-night pints and a game of darts, and the rest of us settled down to watch television with tea and biscuits. I restrained myself once again.

The next morning, we were woken early to go to Mass. This was treated like a big occasion. The girls had been up early doing their hair, and Mrs Gough was polishing all the shoes, including mine. She tried to hide her disappointment that I hadn’t brought my suit, but I placated her by wearing one of Mr Gough’s nylon ties. According to tradition, we weren’t allowed to eat before Mass. By the time we got to church at 10.30 a.m., I was starving. And the journey to and from the church had been a group one. My mood deteriorated.

On the way home, the women of the family rushed off together and I was left with the taciturn Mr Gough, who offered to show me around the town. I could hardly refuse, but felt ambushed. We walked up and down the grey streets and across the Shannon while he pointed to things in between long silences. ‘That’s the library … that’s the castle.’ Mr Gough was not a natural conversationalist.

Having pointed out his local pub on the riverbank, he said, ‘Is there anything in particular you’d like to ask me?’