Rosie might have meant this as an olive branch but Peg only felt the poke of a stick.
This is my Master’s thesis topic. Examining the educational practices of nineteenth-century religious institutions helps us understand the ways in which religion seeps into current secular pedagogical theory. Ideology has long tentacles. It seems premature to dismiss the effect of Catholicism on my – our? – generation. Catholicism is there, a pea at the bottom of a stack of mattresses, shaping our thoughts, even as we claim not to feel its presence.
These were the sentences that arranged themselves in Peg’s brain as another sentence – don’t you see me? – jagged across. The conversation had drifted on before she had any hope of assembling them into a coherent point and Rosie was on to the time that she had dared to put My Little Ponys into Granny Doyle’s crib and Dev was wondering if unicorns had ever been worshipped and then he was checking a Wikipedia article he’d read on that very topic and Peg drifted off again until, getting ready to leave, Rosie looked around the dark corridors and asked, ‘Don’t you get lonely working here?’
They were too different. Rosie found the archive intimidating, while Peg loved the place. Rosie didn’t think much of Manhattan while Peg loved its anonymity, its surprising pockets of quiet, its websites where you could order anything from sushi to sex, its hotel rooms, where you could lie naked on white sheets and say your name was Katie, Gloria, Gail, whatever, knowing that the stranger shutting the door behind him had not used his real name either and that the chances of him being friends with your cousin or cousins with your neighbour were next to nil.
‘No,’ Peg said, staying put by her desk. ‘I don’t.’
8
Rubik’s Cube (2007)
‘Howda ya rate my godfathering so far?’
Rosie laughed at Dev’s terrible accent and joined him by the skylight window, an array of Sabharwals and neighbours below, in the New Jersey back garden of his childhood home.
‘Well, you didn’t drop the baby.’
There was Sara, happily gurgling away, as old ladies passed out food she couldn’t eat.
‘Phew.’
‘And you did some excellent uncle-work.’
The children who could talk were already asking ‘Where’s Dev?’, ready for another spirited dodgeball game.
‘Helps that my mental age got stuck at seven.’
Rosie took a drag of her spliff.
‘Though I’m not sure that sneaking up to your bedroom to find an old stash of weed is the best godfathering.’
‘You’re right,’ Dev said. ‘I should have invited Sara.’
Rosie laughed.
‘I won’t tell Gabriel if you don’t.’
‘Deal.’
At the mention of his name, the dreaded brother-in-law looked up; Dev ducked and pulled Rosie down with him.
‘Smooth.’
‘What can I say, I’ve had practice.’
Rosie settled into the floor and took in the room, bewilderingly stuck in time, with its games console and high school textbooks and posters of The Matrix and a periodic table.
‘I was cool,’ Dev said, following Rosie’s eyes.
‘Your parents didn’t want to use this room.’
‘No, they kept it like this in case I moved back,’ Dev said, with an eye-roll, every parental gesture of affection taken as an insult.
‘Right.’
Rosie hadn’t been inside 7 Dunluce Crescent since she ran away. She doubted that Granny Doyle had left the walls painted purple. Or carefully stored her crystals and dreamcatchers. For the best, no good getting bogged down with material things.
‘So, wanna play Mario Kart?’
Dev used a tone that suggested a joke, though he seemed amenable to staying longer, picking up a Rubik’s Cube and playing with it.
Rosie was in no hurry to return to the christening either. She’d agreed to come because she’d thought that Peg might appreciate an ally. But then Peg had felt sick after the ceremony and hadn’t wanted any company on the train back, quite the contrary, and Dev had seemed so sad that Rosie agreed to stay, even though she felt an eejit, with her blue hair and Peg’s dress too tight on her and the thin smile from Mrs Sabharwal, which assured her that she was used to disappointment from the Doyles.
Rosie needed a glass of water; she took another drag. It had been a mistake to come; she should never have left Clougheally. Apart from Peg, New York had nothing for her and suburban New Jersey was just as bad, if not worse. She had been a fool to think she could cross the Atlantic on a mission. She hadn’t mentioned Pope John Paul III, let alone Aunty Mary’s letter. It was as if Peg had some invisible force field which deflected any mention of the past and kept all talk small. She had nearly exhausted the generosity of the comrade whose couch she was crashing on; it was time to cut her losses.
‘We should probably go back down,’ Rosie said.
‘Probably,’ Dev agreed, rolling another joint.
Time stretched, the sun too.
When Rosie finished her joint, Dev was still playing with the Rubik’s Cube.
‘You’re pretty quick.’
‘Not bad,’ he said, scrambling the puzzle again. ‘My record was fifty-five point four seconds.’
Rosie let out an impressed sound.
‘It’s nothing: the record is twenty-two point nine five seconds. Or used to be, anyway.’
He didn’t check Wikipedia, tossed the cube up and down instead.
‘Dad entered me into a bunch of tournaments when I was younger. Like if I won, I could make it to the moon or Mensa.’
‘You were a cool kid.’
‘Oh yeah, I’ve got the medals to prove it.’
They were probably in the room somewhere, though Dev didn’t search; he put on the voice he used to make fun of academia instead.
‘Of course, it’s really the unscrambling that’s important. You know, there are approximately forty-three quintillion incorrect permutations but what if beauty lurks in truth? What if the Rubik’s Cube is really a type of mandala, a portal to enlightenment, the gateway to nirvana!’
‘Was that your pick-up line? No wonder you’ve got a poster of the periodic table.’
Dev pretended to be hurt.
‘I’ll have you know, your sister was very impressed by that speech. She made me a miniature paper Rubik’s Cube for our first anniversary, little notes written on every surface!’
The smile on Dev’s face faded.
‘Well, our first month anniversary. For our wedding anniversary, she got me a brown paper bag …’
Peg was the problem that brought them together but neither of them knew how to talk about her. Rosie stood and joined him, no sign of the baby below.
‘I should give it to Sara,’ Dev said, looking out the window, where the dusk was clearing the garden.
‘Yeah, she’s bound to solve it in under twenty seconds,’ Rosie said.
‘Or, she has, what, forty-three million—’
‘Quintillion.’
‘She’s