In contrast, walking through the doors of Keane and Sons shocked her precisely because of how familiar everything seemed. The smell! Nowhere else on earth had the same aroma. Chemical fertiliser mixed with plastic and cardboard all layered over the decades of long-gone scents that lingered in the wooden floors. The look of the shop was more or less the same as well. The central staircase that led up to electrical goods and small pieces of pointless furniture was covered in the same worn grey linoleum, the Christmas display remained twinkling and unwanted at the left-hand side of the shop while garden supplies and tools took over to the left of the stairs. At the back, dog beds jostled with paints and cleaning products, while the light of the new baby boutique glowed from the small alcove that used to sell paraffin and loose seeds.
‘They’re up in the flat. Head away up and see them.’ Paul encouraged his cousin towards the stairs.
‘Elizabeth!’ It was Noelle descending the stairway, putting one foot in front of the other with great care like a beauty pageant contestant exiting a private jet.
‘How are you today?’ she enquired, peering over the cellophane-wrapped Babygros piled high in her arms.
‘Great. Yourself?’
‘No rest for the wicked!’ Noelle almost shrieked, punctuating the end of the sentence with a strange nasal honk.
‘I’ll let you get on.’
‘Talk later,’ she called over her shoulder and headed past the long-life bulbs.
A wide smile full of teeth and lipstick fixed on her face, Noelle hid her disappointment well. This was so very far from any life she had imagined for herself. Folding Babygros, dusting unsold birdfeeders, sticking prices on colanders. She sighed and headed towards the rear of the shop. When she had met Paul he had been studying at the College of Commerce out in Rathmines and somehow she had assumed that meant he had a certain amount of ambition. He had confidence, money in his pocket, people liked him, he was what she imagined a young empire builder might be like. When she realised that she was pregnant, she hadn’t even panicked. It could be part of the plan. Paul and Noelle were a team and together they could achieve great things. It was only after the wedding that he had mentioned something about returning to Buncarragh. She remembered the way he said it seemed to imply that they had discussed it or that it was an idea she had always known about. Noelle made it very clear to her new husband that she had no intention of rotting away running some Mickey Mouse family shop in Buncarragh. He had pleaded. Promises had been made. They would save up for a couple of years and start their own business back in Dublin. She hadn’t been thrilled but at least it was a plan, but then two more babies had come along and by the time her in-laws had decided to retire, the whole country was in the toilet. Keane and Sons was worthless, and their savings were hardly enough to buy new bikes for the kids, never mind start a new life. It was obvious that Paul didn’t mind a bit. This was what he had always wanted; for Noelle it was just what she had. Buncarragh. She could see that her kids were happy and even she acknowledged that leaving wasn’t an option, so every morning she got up, looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and put on a brave face.
Up in the flat Elizabeth was wrapped by her Aunt Gillian in a hug that was both too long and too tight.
‘Elizabeth!’ the older woman hissed in her ear, turning the name into a mournful incantation. Finally releasing her niece, she then grabbed both her hands and peered into Elizabeth’s eyes. ‘How are you? It must be hard. Hard. Is it? Hard being back?’
A heavy gold bangle on her aunt’s wrist caught her attention. Surely that had been …
‘Oh, you noticed it! Your mother insisted I have it. Insisted. So, so precious.’ Gillian stroked the bangle before wrapping it in a firm grip that suggested she would not be parting with it before her own deathbed.
Elizabeth was a pinball machine of emotion. Suspicion, fury, jealousy, sadness, but mostly a strange regret because the one person who would really appreciate this story was no longer at the end of the phone. Laughing at her aunt and uncle or listening to her mother relating her sister-in-law’s latest transgression had been a staple part of their family bond for so many years. Elizabeth realised that moments like this would continue to catch her unawares, a thread of memory being snagged on a nail from the past.
‘Sorry. Seeing it just took me by surprise. Everything seems so strange, you know, being in the house without her.’
‘Of course, of course.’ Gillian now grabbed her niece’s arm and pulled her down beside her on the green brocade sofa.