She thought back to how she had felt when she first met Elliot in New York all those years ago when she was studying for her doctorate. He wasn’t her first boyfriend but what she had felt for him was nothing compared to the callow boys at UCD. Elliot was dangerous. He both thrilled and frightened her. That tanned skin and the tiny ridged ladder of bone that climbed up his chest from his open-necked shirts. The confident way he touched her body, his hands mysteriously finding themselves in just the right place. Rushing essays, skipping shifts at the coffee shop, all because she had to be with him. She hadn’t felt as if she had a choice. She had been hooked. High on love. Surely her mother had never felt like that? But then again, if she hadn’t, then she had also managed to avoid the excruciating ten-year comedown that Elizabeth had endured. The years of suspicion, never knowing what was wrong but always aware that things weren’t right. Then, seven, almost eight, years ago, leaving the college after lectures, noticing the dark-haired young man in his oversized coat staring at her. She had thought he was a student.
‘Elizabeth?’
He was standing in front of her. She noticed the little rim of dirt around his nose ring. ‘You don’t know me but …’ and soon she knew everything and could never unknow it. The physical revulsion she had felt thinking about the things that Elliot had been doing at the same time as sharing her bed, kissing their child – it was still all too easy to recall. She hated how the revelations had made her feel, the way Elliot twisted her reactions to accuse her of being homophobic. The frustration and fury could still make her vibrate when she thought of him standing at the foot of their bed full of smug outrage, as if somehow her disgust made him the injured party in this mess of his making. So many of her friends had tried telling her that this was better. It would have been worse if he’d left her for a woman. Stony-faced she had listened but inside she was screaming. There was no better! From now on there would only be layers of worse. Her marriage was over, washed away by a tidal wave of lies. Now Zach was the only worthwhile souvenir from her journey into the deepest, darkest depths of romance. His good-natured way of approaching the world seemed so remarkably unmarred by his parents’ failings. He was her defence that it had all been worth it.
She stood up abruptly to avoid sinking into a now-familiar swamp of regret. The box was returned to the wardrobe and with a sigh Elizabeth accepted that she would have to share this secret. Breaking her dead mother’s confidence made her feel disloyal, but she had to tell someone about what she had found. Who would know more about Edward? She imagined her mother turning in her grave but she was going to have to speak to her Uncle Jerry and Aunt Gillian. She looked at her phone. It was still only seven thirty, too early to talk to anyone. She would make herself some toast.
Opening the kitchen door she didn’t notice it right away. It was the rustle of paper that drew her attention, and then she saw it. Sitting up in her canvas tote bag, holding an energy bar between its small dusty pink paws, was a rat. Elizabeth screamed and slammed the door. Panting with fear she leaned against the wall and scanned the hall for any other rodents. Her body shuddered as she considered how many of them might be in the house. Had they been in the bedroom with her last night? Of course she was used to seeing rats weaving around the black plastic hills of rubbish on the streets of New York late at night, but this was different. Seeing one at such close quarters seemed almost pornographic in its horror. She considered all the things that were in the kitchen. Her car keys, the house keys, her handbag with her passport and purse. She needed a trap or poison or whatever new methods had been developed since she was a girl. The obvious place to go was Keane and Sons, which for as long as she could remember had been an Aladdin’s cave full of anything you might want that wasn’t food or clothing, though of course her cousin Noelle had added a baby boutique, despite the protests from Uncle Jerry.
The shop wouldn’t open till nine. After having a very brief, heart-stopping cold shower, she got dressed and came back downstairs. The kitchen remained off limits and it was still only eight o’clock. The large pile of post was spread across the console table. She sighed and sat in the high-backed mahogany chair that had always been used when anyone was speaking on the phone. It creaked as it always had and the back hit the wall as she knew it would. Ripping open the various envelopes, she found appeals from donkey sanctuaries, cancer charities, guide dogs for the blind, several electricity and phone bills, a letter from the refuse collection company acknowledging the end of service from that address and then a letter from her mother’s solicitor, Ernest O’Sullivan.