years. Arms open wide for all the warm hugs and cuddles she doled out with that same generosity. Only last month she’d sent down a new top for me that she’d noticed in a shop near her. Her note said, ‘It’s just your colour and will look gorgeous on you.’ And it did too. I wore it out the other night to the cinema with the girls and they all raved about it.
Oh Aunty Paula. Of course we had to give her the money.
I felt eyes upon me and realised that my family were waiting for me to speak. ‘It’s just another plot twist,’ I said and walked over to hug Mam, who was crying again. ‘We’ll start saving and, sure, what do they say? Third time lucky. Aunty Paula is more important.’
Everyone nodded in agreement at my words. But we didn’t put the jar back on the dresser for a long time. We lost our saving mojo, I suppose, and although none of us said it, we kind of thought, what’s the point?
Mam’s potato parer was relegated to the back of the cutlery drawer and Saturdays became takeaway nights again. Actually, we ate a lot of takeaways that year, because Mam was away from home a lot and Dad was at work. Days became weeks and then months as chemo treatments rolled by. Then came the radiotherapy. It all took its toll on Aunty Paula and on all of us. Mam in particular. It was a horrible year, all in all. I don’t think we smiled much, at least not that often.
Then one evening Dad came home with a scratch card for Mam ‘Might give her a lift,’ he whispered to Eli and I. She wasn’t herself, worn down with tiredness and worry about her baby sister.
The gods were looking down kindly, because Mam suddenly shouted, ‘I won €50!’
We all whooped in pleasure for her.
‘You should book yourself a facial, you love having a pamper day,’ Dad told her.
‘Or get yourself that nice top you mentioned you saw in Carrig Donn,’ I added.
‘Here, Mam, you should do both,’ Eli slid something across the table towards her. ‘Here’s another twenty to add to the fifty. I sold one of my garden benches today.’
All of Eli’s practice was beginning to pay off and his joinery was widely acclaimed as exceptional. Mam looked at us all and smiled through watery eyes. Then it was like Groundhog Day because she stood up and walked over to the dresser and crouched down low, looking through the over-stuffed press.
‘Where is it? I know I left it here somewhere …’ she mumbled and then, ‘Ha! Got you!’
She looked at each of us. We couldn’t take our eyes off her and then she placed the holiday jar back in its rightful place on top of the dresser. She held up her lottery ticket and Eli’s twenty euro, saying, ‘Third time lucky, that’s what you said, Skye.’ She placed them into the slot and I felt excitement shiver down my spine.
This time we will get to paradise. I just know it.
REA
Derry Lane, Dublin, 2014
‘You took your time,’ Rea grumbled, letting Louis in.
‘I told you I’d be back. Had to get something to eat first.’ He wrinkled his nose and laughed, ‘I see what you mean. There’s a powerful twang off that bin alright.’
The smirk on Louis’ face should have irritated Rea, but it didn’t. The little shit knew that she was at his mercy, but even so, his sheer audacity amused her. He had spunk, get up and go. He wasn’t afraid to hustle and at least he was honest about it. But despite the fact that Louis Flynn was her only contact with the big wide world outside, he was enjoying himself far too much for her liking. So she scowled at him, her mind ticking over ways to bring him back down a few notches.
‘That cheap aftershave of yours sure is nasty, gives a shocking twang alright.’ Rea tried hard to mimic the boy’s smirk and it must have worked because his face fell. Then he gathered himself together and said with an exaggerated wink, ‘I wouldn’t waste the good stuff coming in here to see an aul wan’ like you.’
She snorted in response to cover the laugh that was trying to escape and turned away so he couldn’t see her face.
He carried on channelling his inner Del Boy, ‘I’m a busy man. People to see, things to do. So let’s cut to the chase. I’ve given you my new terms, take it or leave it.’
‘A busy man, you say?’ She looked him up and down once more and sneered, ‘A busy boy, you mean! And what has you so overloaded?’
Rea took out two glasses from the press and poured Fanta orange into them both. Then she grabbed her treat jar and opened the lid, pushing it towards him. He dived in, rooting around till he found his favourite at the bottom – the Twix bars. Rea noted to herself that she’d better add them to her Tesco online shopping list, she’d nearly ran out.
He gulped back the fizz in seconds, then burped loudly, delighted with himself, winking at her. ‘Both.’
‘You’re a pig, Louis Flynn.’
‘Maybe, but I’m a pig who right now is the only one willing to empty your bins. So either you agree to twenty euros a week for that Class A service or I’m out of here.’
‘You only have to bring the bins a few hundred feet down the path, all in all, which takes you less than five minutes each time!’
‘You do it, then, if it’s so easy,’ he replied, sly as a fox. He had Rea over a barrel and he knew it.
‘What would your mother say, if she knew you were trying to quadruple our agreed rates?’
‘She wouldn’t care less. She’s too busy with her latest fella.’
‘A new fella? Sure, she’s only just set the last one packing!’ Rea threw her eyes up to the ceiling.
‘It’s some gobshite who delivers pizzas for Harry’s. They fell for each other over a Hawaiian deep crust.’
Rea had a bad feeling about this. ‘Don’t tell me he has an earring …’
‘Yeah, he does. Size of it, a big round hoopy yoke that girls usually wear. Why?’
‘I know, I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous in my life,’ Rea said. ‘He delivered a pizza here the other night and I told him to go … well, never mind, let’s just say I had words with him.’
‘You can’t leave it like that, Mrs B. What did you say to him?’ Louis was up off his seat, face lit up with excitement.
Buoyed by his enthusiasm, Rea said, ‘I may or may not have given him the finger.’
He roared laughing, delighted with the news. ‘I’d have loved to see that. We were his last call and apparently Mam and him were giving each other the eye last week in Tomangos. So she invites him in. He’s already strutting around like he owns the gaff, bleedin’ tool. And he ruffled my hair, calling me kiddo. Eejit!’
Rea pushed the tin towards Louis, saying, ‘Go on, have another one,’ and he smiled, reaching in for a second bar.
Rea leaned forward and said, ‘Tell you what, ten euro and that’s my final offer, that’s double what you get right now.’ Then she threw in a lie, just to rattle him. ‘That new family who moved into number 65, well, they’ve a lovely young girl, twelve years old and her mam was up here last week saying to me that she would love to help me out.’
He looked at Rea, doubt all over his young, spotty face.
‘Ten euro, take it or leave it. Or I’ll take my business elsewhere.’
‘Fifteen euro, take that or leave that, Rea Brady,’ he threw back at her. He’d some neck on him, she thought. She walked over to her phone and picked it up, making a big