‘I’m thinking of hiring volunteers,’ Ciara declares from the other side of the shop.
‘What for?’
‘To help us out. Maybe we need security, there’s too many things going missing lately, we can’t keep an eye on everything and I can’t afford to pay somebody else. People are always asking to help out, they know we give some of the proceeds to charity. And it would help me for when you’ve got hospital appointments, or when Mathew and I are doing collections.’
A customer at the counter picks up a wallet from the discount tray made up of items that are broken, or aged, too bad condition to offer at full price but too lovely to turn away. She turns it over in her hand.
‘Is this real leather?’ she asks.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘For two euro?’
‘Yes, everything in the tray is two euro,’ I say, distracted, turning to Ciara. ‘I’ve tried to get the hospital appointments on Mondays, Ciara, but they keep insisting on Fridays, I’m sorry.’
‘I know, I’m not blaming you. I think it would be helpful for us, that’s all. To keep an extra eye on things, have extra hands.’
‘I’ll take it,’ the customer says, happily.
I take the coin and give her a receipt. She leaves the shop.
‘And you’re a little … distracted, with not moving in with Gabriel, or currently on speaking terms with Gabriel, not selling your house, helping out with the club, and oh my God I have to sit down, I’m so stressed just thinking about your life right now …’
‘I’m not distracted, Ciara,’ I say, snapping. ‘Everything is under control.’
‘Well, that’s a lie if ever I heard one,’ she mumbles.
The bell over the door rings out as a customer arrives. Flustered, she hurries to the cashier’s desk. ‘Hi, I was in here around fifteen minutes ago and I think I left my wallet by the till.’
My eyes widen.
Ciara throws me a menacing look. ‘Find. It,’ she says, through gritted teeth.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I say, polite but panicked, grabbing my crutches and hobbling out of the shop. I look left and right, see the woman who bought the wallet disappear around the corner and I yell after her.
That evening, Ginika sits with me at the dining table for our lesson. True to her word, she has immersed herself in learning how to read and write, and has shown an interest in taking a lesson every single day. And though it’s impossible for me to manage a daily meeting with her, she never tires of asking, and I’m inspired by her energy and her desire to learn. She tells me she practises during Jewel’s naptime, when Jewel sleeps at night, while waiting for hospital treatments, she has barely watched TV in two weeks and when she does, it’s with subtitles. I need to match the strength of her determination.
Jewel sits on Ginika’s left knee, moved as far away from the table as possible, chewing on a teething ring between pulling at her mother’s pencil, the object that is stealing her mother’s attention away from her. Jewel has learned to despise these pencils and papers and knows that in their destruction lies attention from both the women who stop their work to scold her.
Ginika’s learning ‘OW’ ‘OU’ sounds, along with images. I quickly realised her reading ability sped up when it was accompanied by the visual. Her mind prefers to learn in images, not words, but together they complement each other. All she needed was another way to learn, and more time. Always, more time.
There are four words in the textbook, she needs to identify the word that doesn’t have the OU/OW sound and circle it. The options are Clown, House, Cloud, Cheese. Cheese is written in yellow with holes through the letters, the ‘o’ in clown resembles a red nose. Hearing OW and House in the same sentence trigger my sensitivities. Ow, indeed. I still haven’t called the estate agent and put a halt to the house sale. After spending so long putting it on the market, it’s taking an equally long amount of time to remove it. Doing so would require focus of thought on my personal life which I’m incapable of right now. My eyes well and I look in the opposite direction, and blink frantically to dispel the tears. When I’ve managed to chase the emotions away, I turn back to her work.
Ginika and Jewel are both watching me.
‘Well done!’ I say, jollily. I turn the page.
Ginika looks again at the naked wall scarred with holes where the wedding photo used to hang. She hasn’t yet enquired, but I know she’s going to. She’s not one to hold back, always says what she thinks, seeming not to care about the emotion it will evoke in her companion. She seems to think that holding back is for fake people who ‘aren’t real’. I tell her it’s called being polite.
‘What happened?’ she finally asks.
‘It fell.’
She raises an eyebrow, not believing me.
‘What’s the foster family like?’ I ask tentatively, taking Jewel’s little foot in my hand.
She groans and shifts in her chair. ‘A woman named Betty takes her for my hospital appointments or when I’ve no energy. She’s got three kids of her own. And a country accent. I don’t want Jewel to have a country accent.’
I smile at her. ‘You’re not sure?’
She shrugs.
‘I’m sure nobody is going to feel good enough for you.’
‘They have to. Somebody will feel good enough. I’m not going until I’ve that at least.’
The doorbell rings. I’m not expecting anyone and I don’t have the type of neighbours who call by unannounced. I hope that it’s not Gabriel. I’ve avoided his calls, not because I’m being dramatic but because I’m trying to determine how I feel. Sometimes I think the mind is a petri dish of accumulated information, all mushed together, and if I leave it to stew long enough I might find it doesn’t actually bother me at all, despite the fact it should. I’m waiting for that to happen. But I don’t want to have the conversation with him now and especially not in front of Ginika. Nor do I want to hear his reaction when he discovers that, in addition to guiding people on their letters, I’m teaching them how to write too. It’s one thing to help, it’s another for it to take over your life. And it’s the taking over my life that would be the debate, is the debate.
I open the door and find Denise, holding a bag wrapped in a dust cover.
‘Hey,’ she sings. ‘Just wanted to return the clutch you loaned me.’
She hands it to me, and steps into the house.
I look inside. ‘From last year?’
‘You should consider yourself lucky,’ she says, going straight into the living room. ‘I was going to keep it. Oh hello,’ she says, seeing Ginika and Jewel. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.’
‘You didn’t ask. Denise this is Ginika. Ginika is a …’ I look at Ginika for permission and she nods ‘… member of the PS, I Love You Club.’
Denise succeeds in hiding the inevitable sadness she must feel on hearing that. She settles on a gentle smile. ‘Hi, Ginika. Nice to meet you.’ She goes over and hunches down to Jewel’s level. ‘And who is this beautiful girl? Hello!’ She makes all kinds of baby noises and Jewel grins. She offers her teething ring to Denise. ‘Oh thank you very much!’ Denise takes it and pretends to munch on it. ‘Yum yum yum.’
Jewel giggles.
‘You have it back,’ she hands it back to Jewel. Jewel takes it, slobbers on it and hands it back to Denise. Denise repeats the gesture. And this goes on.
‘Are you the Denise who had to be rescued in the sea on holiday in Lanzarote?’
Denise grins and flicks her hair. ‘Why yes I am. I was topless in a leopard-print thong. My finest hour.’
‘I think I left that detail out of the podcast.’
‘She left all the best bits out.’
Ginika smiles. A rare thing.
‘Denise—’
‘I’d love to hear about the karaoke night,’ Ginika continues. ‘Was it really as bad as Holly described?’
‘Bad? It was worse because I had to listen to it. Holly is as tone deaf as they come.’
‘OK, OK,’ I clap my hands, trying to get their attention. The only person who takes notice is Jewel, who claps along, her new favourite sport. ‘I’m sorry to break you girls up but we’re in the middle of something very important here, Denise, and Ginika has to leave in an hour.’
Denise looks at her watch, ‘That’s OK. I can wait. Will I make you both tea or coffee? Coffee for you, munchkin?’ she says to Jewel and tickles her. Jewel dissolves in giggles. ‘Do you want me to mind her while you guys work?’ Denise eyes the papers on the table.
‘Oh no,’ Ginika says, tightening her grip around Jewel’s waist. ‘She doesn’t go to anyone but me.’
‘Trust me,’ I say, backing her up. ‘She’s all sunshine and light, but as soon as you put her down, the darkness appears.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe that,’ Denise says, back on her knees again. ‘Will you come with Denise? Dee Nee? Jewel come to Dee Nee?’
‘Dee Nee?’ I ask, amused.
‘No, it’s OK, really,’ Ginika says, pulling Jewel away.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask Ginika. I wink at her conspiratorially. ‘Denise really loves babies.’ There is only one way to make Denise shut up and back off and that’s by her experiencing the full force of Jewel.
‘Um … OK,’ Ginika says, loosening her grip.
‘Yay!’ Denise says, holding her arms up and cheering. Jewel giggles. ‘Yay for Dee Nee!’
Jewel lifts her arms up in the air. The teething ring slams Ginika in the face. Then she lowers her arms again.
‘Come to Dee Nee.’
Jewel actually holds out her arms and goes to her, but as soon as she’s in Denise’s arms she realises what she has done. She looks to her mother uncertainly and the frown appears, the flared nostrils, the obvious distaste and disgust of anyone and anything that is not her mother. The irritated sounds start. Denise stands up. The legs start to kick out, frantically. Socks hang on for dear life off the tips of her toes.
‘Look there’s Mama. Mama’s still there.’
Jewel’s sounds of irritation and distress stop, but the face is still on, in full force. She’s not sure about what’s happening here but she’s quite sure she doesn’t like it. Maybe.
‘Hi, Mama.’ Denise waves, and encourages Jewel to do the same. Jewel waves. She brings her on a little walk around the dining room. And then to the TV room. But as soon as she goes to the kitchen out of Ginika’s eyeline, the horror movie screaming starts. Ginika stands up.
‘Leave her for a moment,’ I say. ‘Let Denise deal with it.’ It pains Ginika to leave her but I’m firm. ‘We can finish this section off tonight.’
The screams, the yells, the absolute piercing hysteria echo around the house interwoven with Denise’s gentle soothing voice, songs, and chatter, and I can tell that Ginika’s barely able to concentrate on what I’m saying or the textbook in front of her. But I continue, push through the wall of noise hoping we can get past it.
I call out some words and Ginika writes them down.
‘Where did you and Gerry go on honeymoon?’ Ginika asks suddenly.
‘I think we need to focus on the work, Ginika,’ I say brusquely. But she won’t. I have taken her child from her and she is irritated by the lack of control. I push her forward. She pushes back.
‘You said in the podcast that Gerry sent you and your friends to Lanzarote because you were going to go there on your honeymoon.’
‘Yes.’
She puts the pencil down. ‘So why didn’t you go there? Where did you actually go?’
‘Somewhere else,’ I say, handing her back the pencil.
She fixes me with a strange look, unhappy with my response. Here she is raw and vulnerable and I won’t answer her questions. I sigh and begin to explain, when she holds her hand up to stop me. She cocks her ear and listens.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t hear anything.’
It takes me a moment to realise that Jewel has stopped crying, that in fact it has been silent for a few minutes. Ginika jumps out of her seat.
‘It’s OK, Ginika, I’m sure she’s fine,’ I say, reaching out to her, but she moves quickly, away from the table, through the kitchen and straight upstairs. I follow her, holding on to the banister and hopping behind her as fast as I can. Ginika doesn’t wait, she rushes ahead of me up the stairs. I find her standing at the door of the small spare bedroom, blocking my view. Breathless, I peek inside. Denise is sitting up on the bed, against the headboard, her legs out before her, staring out the window, with Jewel fast asleep on her chest, wrapped in a blanket. The room is dark, lit only by the street lamps that shine inside. Denise looks at us, confused as to why we’re staring at her.
‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Was she not supposed to sleep? It’s late, she seemed tired.’ She looks at Ginika and then to me, worried she’s upset the mother.
‘No, it’s great,’ I say, grinning. ‘Perfect, Denise, well done.’
I go to lead Ginika away, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t seem pleased.
‘We have to go,’ Ginika says loudly and Jewel stirs.
‘What? But why?’ I ask, whispering. ‘We can get a lot of work done now.’
‘No,’ Ginika says, distressed, and going for her baby. ‘We have to go home.’ She lifts Jewel from Denise’s body, and leaves the room.