With that thought, Niall felt himself drift off into a deep sleep. Only in the morning he’d wonder at the notion that his father had managed to carry on as if nothing much had changed in the world and for some strange reason, over a year after it had all happened, this seemed like a fresh revelation.
The next day, his grandmother didn’t call Niall until after two and then they sat down to brunch together. They spent a leisurely hour, between readying their meal and then sitting at the small kitchen table overlooking the rocky garden that fell away towards an old brick wall at the end. Amid all of the emotion since they’d arrived, the one thing that had registered with Niall was his grandmother’s appearance. She had become old-looking. It wasn’t that her hair had greyed more or that she walked with a stoop, it was something more abstract, and yet weirdly more profound. She was tired. Niall wasn’t sure if that fatigue was all about the drama that had kicked up around him, or if it was something else, just the amalgamation of all the worries of the last few years, all coming together to wash the vitality from her. The realisation added to a new emotion that Niall had become aware was beginning to sit somewhere at the back of his conscience. Was it guilt?
‘It’s not that bad, is it?’ she asked as they sat finishing their coffee. He could see that fatigue hadn’t dulled her ability to see right through him.
‘What?’ Part of his brain was thinking, please, not the big heavy conversation now. He had actually thought they might get away without this at all.
‘Everything, I mean, you know, we’re all doing our best, but… well…’ she said. ‘I know that you’re a bit thrown by your mum taking up the job at the surgery, but it’s only to see how things go. She hasn’t jacked in her job or your lives in Dublin. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve seen her as happy in ages?’ Of course, she was talking about his mother’s job.
‘I know you’re right.’ He did. He’d seen it, compared to when she came home from a shift at the hospital; she was enthusiastic, as if suddenly she was doing something that meant something to her. ‘It’s just… I feel like it’s come out of the blue…’
‘And it has,’ his grandmother agreed. ‘For both of you, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. Once you start making friends here, it’ll be different, you’ll see.’ She smiled kindly at him and he wondered if his mum had mentioned the idea of him going to live in Australia. He had a feeling his grandmother would be every bit as bereft if he left as she had been when they thought he’d fallen over the pier wall. He decided it was best not to mention it, no point in upsetting her. Instead, she sent him on an errand to deliver an apple pie to a shop on Garden Square.
Niall hadn’t noticed Mr Huang’s piano shop before; well you wouldn’t, would you? It was faded and shaded and a sign in the window said if you were interested in looking around you could ring the doorbell and someone would come to let you in. Niall rang the bell and waited, holding the warm apple pie close to him and enjoying the smell of freshly stewed fruit and warm cloves.
‘Hi.’ A young girl, about his age, answered the door.
‘Oh, hi, hello, um, I mean…’ he mumbled, because he had forgotten exactly what he was meant to be doing here, talking to a pretty girl in the middle of the afternoon. ‘I mean, here.’ He held out the pie. ‘My grandmother asked me to send this over for Mr Huang.’
‘That’s my dad.’ She smiled, taking the pie. ‘I’m Zoe and you must be Mrs Harris’s grandson… Neill?’
‘Niall,’ he corrected her a little too formally.
‘Oh, okay. Well, Niall…’ She waited for an uncomfortable moment, when neither had very much to say. ‘I suppose I’ll be seeing you around; that’s if you’re staying on in town?’
‘I um, I suppose you will,’ he said and backed away from the door, trying and failing miserably to pretend that each step wasn’t achingly self-conscious. Then, from a small distance, he shouted, ‘I’ll see you around, Zoe Huang,’ before racing back to his grandmother’s house.
For some reason the rest of the day seemed to pass by in a lazy haze; perhaps he was getting used to not having his PlayStation, but it was late in the evening before he even began to think about it again. And then, his mother had returned from work and it seemed he had more pressing things to think about.
‘Did you get a chance to talk to Dad?’