‘Don’t,’ Margaret agreed. ‘It would be inappropriate.’
‘Luke left her!’ Helen exclaimed. ‘She can do what she likes!’
‘Anyway, Quin’s in New Mexico,’ I said. ‘He’s not back till Sunday.’
‘Do you want me to go with you?’ Mum asked.
The answer was no. But how did I tell her?
‘Girls,’ she said with sudden anxiety, ‘go easy on the rouge while I’m reposing in my coffin.’
‘I’m sorry but I can’t come,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve no more holiday leave left, not until July.’
‘Nor can I,’ Claire said. ‘Big meeting. Sorry.’
We all turned to Helen who looked uncomfortable and said, ‘I’ve a thing.’
‘What thing? You work for yourself!’
‘Not a work thing.’ Helen gave Mum a cool stare. ‘And not something I can reschedule.’
This was like dropping a lit match into a can of petrol. Instantly everyone was agog. We were far too enmeshed in each other’s lives, my sisters, Mum and me.
‘You’re up in court?’ Mum asked. ‘For assault? For stalking? For trespassing?’
‘Nope. Nope. Nope. And nope. You can keep on asking, but you’re wasting your breath.’
‘You’re getting married?’ Mum asked hopefully. ‘Artie’s finally making an honest woman out of you?’
I was so interested in her answer to this. You know the way you sometimes can’t figure relationships out? Well, that was Helen and Artie. To me, they seemed bafflingly ill matched. Helen courted trouble: she spoke her mind, changed it frequently and was prone to sudden, passionate grudges. Artie – an intensely clever man who worked in financial policing – was cool, calm and impossible to ruffle. He barely spoke, which Helen said suited her because she wasn’t with him for his conversational skills but for his expertise between the sheets.
You could see her point: Artie was phenomenally handsome – huge and broad-shouldered, with the flaxen, blue-eyed, unkempt appeal of a Viking.
From one or two things Helen had let slip, I gathered that Artie took no nonsense from her. Well, not much. You couldn’t say he’d tamed her because he hadn’t, but he was probably the first of her boyfriends who hadn’t been destroyed by her tendency to break nice things.
Helen smirked. ‘I’m not getting married. Like, ever.’
‘Whatever it is,’ Margaret said, her tone kind, ‘you’ll tell us when you’re ready.’
‘Yeah. I will.’ And Helen actually blushed.
In wonder, we watched the flush creep its way up her pretty, cat-like face.
‘Something to do with Your Best Friend, Bella Devlin?’ Claire pounced.
Bella Devlin was Artie’s youngest daughter and had been Helen’s best friend since Bella was nine and Helen thirty-three. （Bella was now fifteen.） Such unorthodox behaviour was typical of Helen but it was a relief that she had a friend at all.
‘Leave Bella Devlin, My Best Friend, out of this,’ Helen said.
‘Tell us!’ Claire commanded.
‘Nope.’
‘Flowers.’ Mum had lost interest. ‘I want lots of flowers. I want a wreath that says “GRANNY” from my grandchildren. Shiny pink nail varnish and I want my good rosary beads, the mother-of-pearl ones that Father Fergus brought me back from Fátima, threaded through my fingers –’
Claire was clicking on her phone. ‘Rachel. Kate’s not rostered to work in Blossom Hall on Friday, she could go with you.’
Unless … I looked at Helen. ‘Is she working for you on Friday?’
‘Let’s seeeeee.’ Helen had a think. ‘Go on then, yeah, she can have the morning off.’
‘You better not be giving her all the dodgy jobs,’ Claire told Helen.
Helen had another think. ‘Ah, she’s grand. Nothing too … dangerous.’
‘Actually, I really should go to this funeral,’ Mum said. ‘To show respect. She was my opposite number in the Walsh–Costello marriage.’
But almost from the word go, Mum had taken against poor Marjorie Costello.
She’d never have admitted it, but back in the day Mum had decided that because Luke’s dad, Brian, was a mere electrician – contrasting with Daddy Walsh, the accountant – the Walshes were somehow better than the Costellos.
It made no difference that both Mum and Daddy Walsh had come from humble backgrounds and that Daddy Walsh had gained his qualifications via a correspondence course instead of spending four free-and-easy, duffle-coated years swaggering about Trinity College like an entitled young buck.