I sit on the edge of her bed. ‘I do.’
‘You told me that night how Wilbur the pig turned you into a vegetarian on your eighth birthday, remember?’
‘I remember,’ I say, smiling.
Mam collected me from school that day, the two of us sitting on the top deck of the bus, playing I Spy, getting off in town, me gripping her hand as we walked across O’Connell Street towards Eason’s bookshop. I scanned the footpath for a policeman. Mam always said if I got lost, I should find a policeman, so I used to keep an eye out for them, just in case.
I read the whole book that day. Charlotte’s Web. Which was how I discovered that food like rashers and sausages and ham and pork all came from pigs like Wilbur. I locked myself in the bathroom and thought about all the rashers and sausages and ham and pork I had eaten. Mam just smiled when I told her that I wouldn’t be eating meat any more. Dad said, ‘You’ll eat what your mother puts in front of you and be bloody grateful for it.’
When Iris pressed me as to why I was a vegetarian in the tapas restaurant that night, I ended up telling her my Charlotte’s Web story.
‘That’s pretty impressive for an eight-year-old,’ she said. I remember the way she looked at me when she said that. An admiring sort of look, which I felt was unwarranted since I had no other tales to tell of heroic childhood deeds. I had mostly been a timid, careful child. But that night in the restaurant, when Iris looked at me like that, I felt perhaps there was more to it. More to me. It was … well, it was lovely.
Iris turns onto her side. Her eyes are closed. I move towards the bedroom door. ‘Terry?’ Iris’s voice is heavy with drowsiness.
‘Yes? I’m here.’
‘They were really good tapas, weren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Now get some rest.’
I walk out of the bedroom, through the hall towards the sitting room. I find I am humming the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus, which is odd as I am not a hummer, as a rule. I remember Iris singing it at the top of her voice on our way to the taxi rank when we left the tapas restaurant that night. And when I joined in – it wasn’t a conscious decision, it just happened – Iris threw her arm around my shoulder and sang even louder. And while it’s fair to say that I am not a natural singer and certainly not in public, nor am I comfortable with such familiarity, I raised my voice too and reached my arm around Iris’s waist.
That was before she needed her sticks. Her hands shook when she examined the menu, but she never referred to it or offered an explanation. Maybe she presumed I knew about her MS from that most dreaded of office shrubbery, the ‘grapevine’, which was the case.
I often forgot she had MS. I told her that once – I was apologising for it, actually – and she said it was the nicest thing anybody ever said to her. She was preparing to climb Carrauntoohil in County Kerry at the time. I was helping her pack, and she threw an enormous bag of pills into the top compartment of her rucksack, and that’s when I made the comment. Iris never had time for her MS. She was too busy getting on with the business of life and it’s funny, even knowing what I know now about primary progressive MS and what an awful diagnosis it is, I would still say that I have never known anybody as in love with life as Iris is. She makes living seem … I don’t know … sort of exotic. Something to be tasted with relish. Like tapas for the first time.
MAKE SURE YOUR VEHICLE IS ROADWORTHY.
Outside, it’s overcast and close. And I have to shop. For clothes. I hate shopping for clothes.
There’s no Marks & Spencer. There’s a Tesco Express. And a Starbucks. I buy a toothbrush and toiletries and a takeaway cup of decaffeinated coffee.
The clothes shops are boutiques with bald, angular mannequins in the windows and no price tags on anything. Then I spot a Sue Ryder charity shop across the road.
I’ve never bought anything in a charity shop, although I’ve contributed many black bin bags of the girls’ toys and books and clothes over the years. Not that I’m blowing my own trumpet or anything. It’s just, like I said, I hate waste, and Hugh said not to bother posting the girls’ clothes because his wife wasn’t big on hand-me-downs for Isabella, and besides, the price of the postage to Australia would negate the advantage, wouldn’t I agree?
Hugh’s wife – Cassandra – is a funny one. Not funny exactly, just a bit … aloof perhaps.
The last time Hugh and Cassandra came home, little Isabella was only two, so it must be, oh, five years ago now. They left Isabella with Brendan and me, while they stayed at the Merrion Hotel. They said they didn’t want to discommode us and they didn’t think the Merrion was really suitable for children. Besides, they knew I’d love to spend as much time as possible with my niece.
Which was true, but maybe not at four o’clock in the morning, which was the time she woke, what with the jet lag and the strange surroundings.
She ended up sleeping in my bed every night. Brendan slept in the spare room. He said he didn’t mind.
This must be a swanky part of London because the charity shop is like a proper boutique with an accessories section and an immaculately turned-out young woman with terrifying eyebrows behind the counter and a bright, fresh smell that has no bearing on old, discarded clothes and worn-out shoes.
The young woman eyes me, and I brace myself.
‘Can I help you?’
I always say, No. Thank you. I always say, I’m just browsing.
‘No thank you,’ I say. ‘I’m just browsing.’
‘What are you browsing for?’ asks the woman. Her name badge – handwritten in large, flamboyant print with a love heart instead of a dot over the i – says Jennifer.
‘I kind of need … everything,’ I say.
‘Right,’ she says. ‘You’ve come to the right place. I’d say you’re a …’ She looks me up and down, ‘ten?’
‘Yes, I—’
‘And I’m going to say, given your height, you’re a size seven shoe.’
I nod. She studies my breasts with great concentration.
‘34B?’
‘Yes. How did you …?’
Jennifer shrugs. ‘I’m just doing my job,’ she says with grave conscientiousness. ‘I’m going to step beyond my remit now and tell you a few things about yourself,’ she says, and I am suddenly terrified that she can see right inside me. That she knows everything.
Jennifer narrows her eyes at me. ‘You’re a reluctant shopper.’
‘Eh, well, I suppose you could say th—’
‘Yes or no is fine.’
‘Oh, em, right then, I … yes.’
‘You usually shop in Marks & Spencer.’
‘How did you kn— Sorry. Yes.’
‘You have no interest in style.’
‘Eh, well …’
‘Yes or no?’
‘I suppose not, no.’
‘You like comfortable clothes.’
‘Yes.’ That’s an easy one. Who doesn’t like comfortable