Semi-Sweet (43 page)

“I’ve no intention of changing my mind.” Alice paused. “But maybe you’re having second thoughts? Because I can always—”

“Oh, no,” Geraldine said quickly. “No, no, not at all, I’m happy to take over. It’s just…I’m afraid you might regret your
decision and think it’s too late to back out, and I’m just saying I’ll understand if you do, that’s all.”

“Thank you.” Alice took a custard cream from the plate between them and set it on the table by her cup. “I appreciate that.”

When the idea had first slipped into her head, as she lay sleepless in her single bed the night after she’d brought Tom to
the clinic, Alice’s instinct had been to dismiss it. You didn’t run away from your problems. You faced them down until you
beat them.

But the problem was Jason, and he was dead, and no amount of wishing would change that. So leaving Clongarvin wouldn’t be
running away from anything, because wherever they went, Jason’s death would be there. It would never leave them.

New surroundings might help though. Putting physical distance between them and the nightmare might somehow make it a bit more
bearable, might allow them to forgive each other, and themselves. It might make no difference at all, of course, but the possibility
was there; the hope was there.

And so Alice had allowed the idea to take root. They couldn’t travel outside the country, not with the court case pending,
but they could go to Donegal maybe, or West Cork, somewhere nobody knew them or remembered an accident that had happened in
March in Clongarvin. Rent a small house somewhere, live simply. Look after each other, like they used to do.

And when she felt that the time was right, she’d bring up the subject of early retirement. She couldn’t see Tom going back
to work, whatever happened at the trial, and he couldn’t take unpaid leave forever. What did the Americans call it? Closure,
that was it. They needed closure. If he wasn’t sent to jail, she’d urge him to take early retirement.

They’d have to come back here for the court case, of course. Ellen would be home, and they’d need the house so they all had
somewhere to stay. So they wouldn’t sell up, not yet anyway.

And naturally the outcome of the trial would have a bearing on what came next, but they’d deal with that when they had to.
They’d deal with the future when they knew what it held for them.

The shop door opened, and Geraldine got to her feet. “I’ll go.”

Business hadn’t picked up. There was no need for both of them to be there. It made perfect sense for Geraldine to run the
place on her own when Alice left. It would make perfect sense for her to take over the lease completely if Alice never returned
to it. Time would tell.

Alice put her untouched custard cream back on the plate. She hadn’t much of an appetite lately.

Adam pressed “save” and flipped open his mobile. A number he didn’t recognize was displayed.

“Hello?”

No response.

“Hello there,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

“I think you should come back.” All in a rush, the words running into each other. “I’d like to teach you again.”

“Vivienne?”

But of course it was Vivienne. Adam watched goldfish swim across his computer screen. He wondered what it had cost her to
pick up the phone and dial the number on his business card—which hadn’t, it would seem, ended up in her bin after all.

“Well, the thing is,” he said, “I’ve sold the clarinet. I sold it yesterday, in fact. On eBay.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

“Hello?” he said again.

“You could try the piano,” she said.

“Hey, maybe I could try the piano,” he said, at exactly the same time.

Another long pause. He watched the goldfish and tried to summon his thoughts, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“You know,” he said then, “that’s not a bad idea. I’m not sure that the clarinet was my instrument, actually. I think I’d
be more suited to the piano.”

Dead silence.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“You’ll need one to practice on,” she said. “I could ask my brother if he’ll lend you a keyboard. He has some old ones.”

Adam’s smile broadened. “That certainly sounds like a plan,” he said.

A further long pause, and then: “All right.”

“All right?”

“Yes.”

“Right then,” he said, watching the fish. “The piano it is. Does Thursday still suit you?”

“Yes.”

“Same time?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, remembering. “Would your mother be terribly offended if I didn’t have the milk at break
time? Milk…gives me a headache.”

Another pause. “All right.”

“Right then,” he repeated. “I’ll see you Thursday.”

She hung up without saying good-bye. Adam folded his phone slowly.

She had called him. She had dialed his number, and she had asked him to come back. Even when he’d told her about selling the
clarinet, she had found another way to get him back.

She wanted him to come back.

“She wants me to come back,” he said to Kirby, and the sound of his voice caused the dog’s tail to sweep the floor in lazy
arcs. “She misses me. Can’t say I blame her, really.”

Thursday was three days away. He thought about seeing her again in three days, and the delight bubbled up in him.

Hannah didn’t recognize her at first. All she saw was another mother with a baby, struggling to maneuver the wheels of her
baby buggy over the edge of the path. Two shopping bags hung from the handle.

It wasn’t until she had almost reached her that Hannah realized who the mother was. She bent and lifted the front wheels of
the buggy onto the path, meeting the baby’s blue eyes as she did so. He regarded her calmly.

“Hello,” Hannah said softly. He had Patrick’s mouth, Patrick’s nose.

“Thank you,” the other woman said, and Hannah looked up and saw the slender, drawn face, the red dress that smocked out over
the still-swollen abdomen, the hair a shade darker and longer now than when she’d sold Hannah the massage voucher. She’d changed
a lot since then.

But that was a year ago. They’d both changed a lot since then.

Hannah stood up. For a second the two women looked at each other. Then Hannah turned and walked away.

“Bless us,” Mrs. O’Toole said. “He’s coming back?”

“Yes,” Vivienne replied. “He’s changing to the piano.” She kept her face turned away, so her mother didn’t demand to know
what was so funny, and busied herself with the feather duster, pushing it between the piano keys.

“Changing to the piano?” her mother repeated. “Well, that’s a…well, I don’t know
what
that’s all about.”

“And he says he doesn’t want milk,” Vivienne added, flicking the duster at Pumpkin, causing the cat to dart at it with his
paw. “He says milk gives him a headache.”

“What? He gets a headache from milk?” Mrs. O’Toole snorted. “Well, I’ve heard it all now.”

Vivienne pulled the duster back abruptly. Pumpkin, too late to stop his instinctive lunge after it, toppled from the top of
the piano and landed on the floor in an undignified heap. Vivienne burst out laughing.

“Would you leave that poor cat alone,” her mother said crossly. “I don’t know what’s got into you today, I really don’t.”

“Sorry,” Vivienne replied, not sounding remotely apologetic. She crouched and gathered Pumpkin into her arms and pressed her
face into his furry warmth. “Sorry,” she murmured again, thinking about Thursday, and trying hard to keep from skipping around
the room.

Bill Dunne had decidedly mixed feelings about being a grandfather. At fifty-eight he was far from ready to embrace the notion
of middle age, and he worked determinedly to ensure that he kept any signs of degeneration at bay for as long as possible.

He started every other morning, whatever the weather, with a half-hour run. He drank alcohol with discretion and hadn’t smoked
since his twenties. He ate fairly healthily— being left a widower with two young sons had encouraged him to upgrade his cooking
skills—and every fourth Friday he traveled to a hair salon in Galway for another dark brown rinse.

And the fact that he had a job that gave him access to plenty of younger, beautiful females went a considerable way toward
keeping him young at heart.

Bill Dunne had been talented enough, and lucky enough, to have made a better-than-average living as a freelance fashion photographer
for most of his working life. Now he was in the enviable position of being able to pick the jobs he wanted—happily, he was
still very much in demand—and reject the others. He worked eight or nine months of the year, and the rest of the time he enjoyed
himself, generally in the company of some of the young females he met through his work.

So the notion of suddenly becoming a grandfather, of being thrust into that pipe-and-slippers category, struck him as more
than a little premature. Not that he resented the arrival of Patrick’s son into the world—and Reuben looked remarkably and
endearingly like Patrick had as a baby—but Bill simply wasn’t ready for anyone to call him Granddad. Not now, not yet.

Of course the Dunne name’s being carried on to the next generation would have been some consolation—but in this case, it seemed
that wasn’t going to happen.

“She wants him to be Bradshaw,” Patrick had admitted the night before. “Just Bradshaw.”

Bill hadn’t been told—and hadn’t asked—why his son’s latest relationship had ended so abruptly, barely a fortnight after the
baby’s arrival. Given his own healthy libido, he figured it was a safe bet that another woman was involved—and he was hardly
qualified to criticize. He privately regretted Patrick’s betrayal of Hannah, whom he’d liked, but he figured it was none of
his business, so he kept his feelings to himself.

Leah had seemed like a pleasant sort of woman, on the scant occasions they’d met—lunch in her small apartment on Bill’s return
from his Greek cruise, a Sunday-afternoon stroll through the nearby park, a hospital visit to view his new grandson—but now
she was gone, too, and so far there was no sign of a successor.

And clearly whatever had taken place to cause her breakup from Patrick had left her bitter enough not to want their son to
carry his father’s name.