Postscript(40)

Then there’s Gabriel and me, relaxed, laughing, hair blowing across our faces, more natural, frown lines and freckles visible. Our photo is a selfie with an indistinct background. I chose to frame it because I liked how happy we look. He beams at me from the mantelpiece, and seems to snuggle me more closely, smug at his win.





19


Of all the areas in the shop, the trinket display is my favourite. It’s an old drawer unit that Ciara found, a chunky old-school dresser with three wide heavy drawers and on top stands a discoloured mirror that is so covered in black spots you can’t see your face. I love this unit, and chose it specially for the trinkets. The top of the unit contains pieces, the first drawer is pulled out slightly and also displays items, the second drawer a little more and the bottom drawer all the way out, so that it dips because of the weight and sits on the floor. The owner said her mother used the bottom drawer as a cot for her babies. This is the section children are drawn to, but nothing is of any significant value – not that we know of, anyway – and usually items are priced at twenty euros or less. My favourite pieces are the pillboxes, compact mirrors, jewellery boxes and decorative spoons, along with the hair-slides and brooches which are specific to this area and not to be placed in the jewellery section. A new arrival perfect for this trinket display is a jewellery box that I discover wrapped up in newspaper, in a cardboard box. It is mirrored, the lid is embellished with crystals, emerald, rubies and diamonds, of the costume variety. Inside is a velvet insert with sections for individual pieces, where some of the jewels that have fallen off the top sit snugly. I give a gentle tug and the velvet insert lifts, allowing it to be used as a box.

‘What you got there, magpie?’ Ciara interrupts my thoughts. Today she is dressed as a 1940s glamour puss, all red lipstick and a black-netted head veil, a shoulder-padded dress that squishes her boobs up the V-shaped neck, a leopard-print belt sucks her waist in and sends her hips oozing out. She wears this with floral print Doc Martens.

I lift the box to show her. She examines it, leaving fingerprints where I’ve already cleaned it.

‘Pretty.’

‘I’m going to buy it,’ I say quickly, before she suggests keeping it.

‘OK,’ she hands it back.

‘How much?’

‘Work overtime tonight for free?’ she asks hopefully.

I laugh. ‘I’m going for dinner with Gabriel. It’s been a while, so I’m not cancelling.’

‘OK, well if you can’t work tonight, you can’t have the box.’ She pulls it away as I dive clumsily for it.

‘Ow,’ I wince, hurting my ankle in the process.

She dangles it higher in the air.

‘I’m going to report you for employee bullying.’

She sticks out her tongue and hands me back the box. ‘Fine, I’ll ask Mathew. Good luck with Gabriel, and tell him I’m …’ she pauses as I throw her a warning look. She thinks Gabriel is angry with her for making me take part in the podcast, and therefore angry with her for my involvement with the club. I keep telling her to stop apologising, he’s not angry with her, just me, but I don’t think that’s true. He seems to be irritable with everyone these days.

‘Tell him you’re what?’ I ask.

‘Nothing,’ she finishes her sentence.

‘Easy. I tell him you’re nothing all the time,’ I grin, wiping her fingerprints off the mirror.

At one of our regular spots, Cucino, an Italian bistro near his house, I find Gabriel seated outside. It’s a cool evening but the gas heaters give it a greenhouse effect and make it feel as though we’re in the midst of a balmy Italian summer.

He kisses me and helps me into my chair, laying the crutches on the ground beside us. I scan the menu and choose instantly. I always get the same thing. Gnocchi in burned butter and sage sauce. I wait while Gabriel chooses his dish. He’s leaning over the menu, forehead furrowed in deep thought and concentration but his eyes aren’t moving over the words. I watch him pretending to study the menu. He lifts his glass and takes an enormous slug of wine, then eyes back to the menu, back to the same place. I study the bottle on the table. Two glasses gone already.

‘What do you call a zoo with one dog?’ I ask, finally breaking the silence.

‘Hmm?’ He looks up.

‘What do you call a zoo with one dog?’

He looks at me blankly.

‘A shih-tzu,’ I say, smiling.

He has no idea what I’m talking about.

‘A shih-tzu. Shit. Zoo.’

‘Holly, I don’t … what are you talking about?’

‘It’s a joke!’

‘Oh. OK.’ He smiles a little, a vague one, and returns his attention to the menu.

The arrival of the waitress to take our order is the only break in the silence. We order, hand the menus back to the waitress and then he twists his hands and fingers together, fidgeting. And then it occurs to me. He’s nervous. I pour his wine to give him a moment to collect himself, but he seems to get worse as he waits, making trumpet-like sounds as he fills his upper lip with air, then stopping to drum the counter un-rhythmically with his forefingers, before resuming his odd in-out lip movements.

The waitress brings bruschetta and chopped tomatoes to the table while we wait for our main course. Seemingly relieved to have a new distraction, he turns his attention to the food, busies himself with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, giving it more attention than he ever has before. He starts playing with his food, separating the chopped tomatoes from the tiny pieces of basil, a wall built from crumbs in between, a precarious structure that rises and stumbles. He studies the increasingly interesting bruschetta. Basil to the left, tomatoes to the right. Crumbs down the centre.