Nora’s house in Golden Square was the only home which had remained constant in all that time. Not as fancy as the villa in Martinique, or as cool as the top-floor apartment in Madrid, which had only lasted six months anyhow, because Pablo had been a bit of a perv and had clearly fancied both Marguerite’s daughters, so they’d left there sharpish.
Golden Square wasn’t cosmopolitan, smart or trendy. It had seemed like the most boring place on the planet to fourteen-year-old Megan in the two years she’d lived there and attended the Sacred Heart Convent. The only reasonable shops in the area were the book shop and the vintage clothes shop, Mesopotamia, where Megan had once found a tattered Pucci scarf for a fiver. Granted, a lot of the clothes there were tragic, but if you rummaged, you could get bargains.
Golden Square was both homely and home. Everybody knew Aunt Nora and liked her, respected her. If Nora forgot her purse when she went to The Nook convenience store, the owner would happily wave her away and tell her to pay another time. Megan couldn’t think of anywhere in the world where she knew people in the same way.
The plane banked over the city, lower all the time. Like Megan’s spirits.
It was horrible, feeling that she’d entirely messed up her life almost before it had begun. She had wanted to do everything right, to be the best she could be, to be wise and kind, and yet somehow she’d ended up in a world where it was easier to go to night clubs ‘til dawn, easier to hang around as part of some rock star’s entourage, easier to do the wrong thing. And all the while it was as if her life was a film; she was just playing a role, just pretending she was real. It felt as though one of her choices actually meant anything because tomorrow she’d wake up and be a different character.
Except it wasn’t a film and the choices she’d made had been real. So were the consequences.
Overnight her fairytale world had turned very real and very ugly.
She didn’t know whether Nora or the comfort of Golden Square would solve any of that. All she knew was that she would give anything to be able to go back and start again.
Nora Flynn saw the last client off the premises and locked the practice door with relief. The heavy curtain she pulled over the door was a sign to regulars that Golden Square Chiropody Clinic was closed for the day. It had been a long one; seven clients ending with a very difficult woman at six who wanted something done about a fungal nail infection but did it mean her nail polish would have to come off?
‘What?’
‘I don’t want my pedicure ruined, I’ve just had it done,’ the woman said.
‘You are kidding, aren’t you?’ said Nora.
The woman gazed at Nora, who had poker-straight undyed grey hair and not a shred of make-up on her face.
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Probably not.’
Nora could be endlessly patient. But when the woman had finally left, moaning about her messed-up pedicure, Nora had felt like shrieking, And a plague on you too! after her. Hell was definitely other people.
She checked her watch. Half six. Megan would be on the plane now.
‘Get a taxi,’ Nora had told her on the phone. ‘No point me trekking through evening traffic to the airport.’
‘OK,’ Megan stammered, clearly taken aback but trying not to show it.
‘Shall I make dinner or will you eat on the plane?’ Nora went on briskly, noting Megan’s surprise and moving on.
‘Don’t bother with dinner,’ Megan said, and she sounded more like the old Megan, less like the grand movie star who’d insisted fame wouldn’t change her and yet had been changed all the same.
It would do her good to be back in Golden Square, Nora thought. Nobody would be running round after her here. There was only Nora and Nora didn’t do running around. Not with her knees. She was glad she didn’t have to cook tonight, either. Nora knew her limits and cooking was one of them. A bit of salmon in the microwave and some plain rice would do her nicely.
The practice occupied the ground floor of the house. Normally, she’d have been sharing the space with Kevin, who was a wonderful chiropodist, but he had a week off.
‘Surfing,’ Kevin had said when he booked his holidays.
‘Whatever floats your boat,’ said Nora. ‘It’s supposed to be hard.’
‘Not for me,’ said Kevin, with the innocence of a child, and Nora thought he was probably right. For all Kev’s innocence, he was very competent.
She turned off the lights and opened the door on to the stairs leading to the rest of the house. She lived on the two upper floors.
The basement was a flat let out to a pair of girls who used to work in the bank, and now worked in a bar, making far more money in tips than they’d ever made when they were changing euros into rands and yen on the foreign exchange. The agreement was one party every two months, and so far, they’d kept their side of the bargain. Nora generally got invited to the parties, went for an hour to show that she wasn’t the sour-faced old bag from upstairs, and then retreated to bed with a cup of cocoa, her double-strength wax earplugs and her silk mask.
They all shared the garden at the back, although on weekend mornings, Nora wasn’t bothered by the girls because, like vampires, they rarely rose before noon. Even then, they looked quite undead.
This evening, Nora thought she might sit by the window overlooking the garden and drink a glass of wine to set her up for Megan’s arrival. Nora didn’t like to rely on anything unnatural for relaxation but it had been a stressful day, and she wasn’t entirely looking forward to her niece’s arrival. Megan thought nobody in Golden Square knew what had happened, as if Ireland were some provincial backwater without newspapers or the internet. Like all young people, she thought the current city she was in was the centre of the universe, and everyone who didn’t live there was to be pitied.
But Nora knew it all. And if she hadn’t, Prudence Maguire from the other side of the square had nearly burst a gut to tell her a few days before.
‘Your Megan is in a bit of trouble, is seems. Got herself involved with a married man, broken up the marriage, or so it says in the papers. Just in case you hadn’t heard,’ Prudence had added, smiling like a cobra as they stood in the queue in The Nook with their groceries.
On that particular day, Nora had some soya milk, lemons for her tea and a tin of dolphin-friendly tuna in her basket. Prudence had a half-price chocolate cheese cake and a litre of lambrusco hidden under a copy of the Irish Times. Nora knew because she’d seen Prudence put them there.
Not that she’d say anything, any more than she’d say a reproving word to the girls in the basement flat who drank two weeks’ worth of alcohol units on a Friday night. Nora didn’t tell other people what to do. Didn’t believe in it. Everyone had their own path to follow, was her motto. If Prudence wanted to be a bitch extraordinaire, destroy her arteries with cholesterol and turn into an old soak at home on her own, far be it from Nora to say anything.
‘Thank you for telling me, Prudence,’ Nora had replied calmly, adjusting her spectacles so as to get a clear view of Prudence’s face with its delighted smile. ‘Great day, wasn’t it? Nice to have a bit of heat in your bones with the really freezing weather gone.’
Prudence’s smile faltered at this. She was entirely unaccustomed to people receiving her carefully aimed gossip with politeness. Normally, the recipient would look stunned or hurt or on the verge of needing a restraining order. Nora Flynn just looked as calm as ever,