‘Nailed them up there, didn’t I? Forty-four photos in total, that’s forty-four nails I needed. Went down to the hardware store and bought a pack of nails. Forty nails it contained. They made me buy a second packet just for four more nails.’ He holds up four fingers and shakes his head. ‘Still have thirty-six of them left over in the toolbox. What is the world comin’ to at all, at all.’
Never mind terrorism or global warming. The proof of the world’s downfall, in his eyes, comes down to thirty-six nails in a toolbox. He’s probably right too.
‘So where is it?’
‘Right where it always is,’ he says unconvincingly.
We both look at the closed kitchen door, in the direction of the hall table. I stand up to go out and check. These are the kinds of things you do when you have time on your hands.
‘Ah ah,’ he jerks a floppy hand at me, ‘sit yourself down.’ He rises. ‘I’ll go out and check.’ He closes the kitchen door behind him, blocking me from seeing out. ‘She’s there all right,’ he calls to me. ‘Hello, Gracie, your daughter was worried about you. Thought she couldn’t see you but sure, haven’t you been there all along watchin’ her sniffin’ the walls, thinkin’ the paper’s on fire. But sure isn’t it only madder she’s gettin’, leaving her husband and packing in her job.’
I haven’t mentioned anything to him about taking leave from my job, which means Conor has spoken to him, which means Dad knew my exact intentions for being here from the very first moment he heard the doorbell ring. I have to give it to him, he plays stupid very well. He returns to the kitchen and I catch a glimpse of the photo on the hall table.
‘Ah!’ He looks at his watch in alarm. ‘Ten twenty-five! Let’s go inside quick!’ He moves faster than I’ve seen him in a long time, grabbing his weekly television guide and his cup of tea and rushing into the television room.
‘What are we watching?’ I follow him into the living room, watching him with amusement.
‘Murder, She Wrote, you know it?’
‘Never seen it.’
‘Oh, wait’ll you see, Gracie. That Jessica Fletcher is a quare one for catching the murderers. Then over on the next channel we’ll watch Diagnosis Murder, where the dancer solves the cases.’ He takes a pen and circles it on the TV page.
I’m captivated by Dad’s excitement. He sings along with the theme tune, making trumpet noises with his mouth.
‘Come in here and lie on the couch and I’ll put this over you.’ He picks up a tartan blanket draped over the back of the green velvet couch and places it gently over me, tucking it in around my body so tightly I can’t move my arms. It’s the same blanket I rolled on as a baby, the same blanket they covered me with when I was home sick from school and was allowed to watch television on the couch. I watch Dad with fondness, remembering the tenderness he always showed me as a child, feeling right back there again.
Until he sits at the end of the couch and squashes my feet.
‘What do you think, Gracie – will Betty be a millionaire by the end of the show?’
I have sat through an endless amount of half-hour morning shows over the last few days and now we are watching the Antiques Roadshow.
Betty is seventy years old, from Warwickshire, and is currently waiting with anticipation as the dealer tries to price the old teapot she has brought with her.
I watch the dealer handling the teapot delicately and a comfortable, familiar feeling overwhelms me. ‘Sorry, Betty,’ I say to the television, ‘it’s a replica. From the eighteenth century. The French used them but Betty’s one was made in the early twentieth century. You can see from the way the handle is shaped. Clumsy craftsmanship.’
‘Is that so?’ Dad looks at me with interest.
We watch the screen intently and listen as the dealer repeats my remarks. Poor Betty is devastated but tries to pretend it was too precious a gift from her grandmother for her to have sold anyhow.
‘Liar,’ Dad shouts. ‘Betty already had her cruise booked and her bikini bought. How do you know all that about the pots and the French, Gracie? Read it in one of your books maybe?’
‘Maybe.’ I have no idea. I get a headache thinking about this new-found knowledge.
Dad catches the look on my face. ‘Why don’t you call a friend or something? Have a chat.’
I don’t want to but I know I should. ‘I should probably give Kate a call.’
‘The big-boned girl? The one who ploughed you with poteen when you were sixteen?’
‘That’s Kate,’ I laugh. He has never forgiven her for that.
‘What kind of a name is that, at all, at all. She was a messer, that girl. Has she come to anything?’
‘No, not at all. She just sold her shop in the city for two million to become a stay-at-home mother.’ I try not to laugh at the shock on his face.
His ears prick up. ‘Ah, sure, give her a call. Have a chat. You women like to do that. Good for the soul, your mother always said. Your mother loved talking, was always blatherin’ on to someone or other about somethin’ or other.’
‘Wonder where she got that from,’ I say under my breath but just as if by a miracle, my father’s rubbery-looking ears work.
‘Her star sign is where she got it from. Taurus. Talked a lot of bull.’
‘Dad!’
‘What? Is it an admittance of hate? No. Nothing of the sort. I loved her with all my heart but the woman talked a lot of bull. Not enough to talk about a thing, I had to hear about how she felt about it too. Ten times over.’
‘You don’t believe in star signs,’ I nudge him.
‘I do too. I’m Libra. Weighing scales.’ He rocks from side to side. ‘Perfectly balanced.’
I laugh and escape to my bedroom to phone Kate. I enter the room, practically unchanged since the day I left it. Despite the rare occasion of guests staying over after I’d gone, my parents never removed my leftover belongings. The Cure stickers were still on the door and parts of the wallpaper were ripped from the tape that had secured my posters. As a punishment for ruining the walls, Dad forced me to cut the grass in the back garden, but while doing so I ran the lawnmower over a shrub in the bedding. He refused to speak to me for the rest of the day. Apparently it was the first year the shrub had blossomed since he’d planted it. I couldn’t understand his frustration then, but after spending years of hard work cultivating a marriage, only for it to wither and die, I can now understand his plight. But I bet he didn’t feel the relief I feel right now.
My box bedroom can only fit a bed and a wardrobe but it was my whole world. My only personal space to think and dream, to cry and laugh and wait until I became old enough to do all the things I wasn’t allowed to do. My only space in the world then and, at thirty-three years old, my only space now. Who knew I’d find myself back again without any of the things I’d yearned for, and, even worse, still yearning for them? Not to be a member of The Cure or married to Robert Smith, but with no baby and no husband. The wallpaper is floral and wild; completely inappropriate for a space of rest. Millions of tiny brown flowers cluster together with tiny splashes of faded green stalks. No wonder I’d covered them with posters. The carpet is brown with lighter brown swirls, stained from spilled perfume and make-up. New additions to the room are old and faded brown leather suitcases lying on top of the wardrobe, gathering dust since Mum died. Dad never goes anywhere, a life without Mum, he decided long ago, enough of a journey for him.
The duvet cover is the newest introduction. New, as in, over ten years old; Mum purchased it