Читать книгу Pipe Dreams - Anne Schulman - Страница 5

“I can’t stay long tonight,” Julie warned as she arrived at Doyle’s, spot on seven o’clock.

“Is your mam worse?” Meany asked as he pulled out a chair for her.

“She’s been bad most of today. My sister is with her now. I didn’t want to let you down. I’ll just have one drink, then I must get back,” she said.

Before he had time to sit down, Julie threw back her gin and tonic in a couple of gulps and pushed back her chair.

“Sorry, Meany, I have to go,” she apologised.

Meany understood. “Keep an eye on my glass, I’ll be back in a minute,” he called to the barman.

He walked Julie to her car and waited until she was safely on her way.

Meany left a great wave of pity for her. It was a little over a year since his own mam had died. He still missed her terribly. Especially on cold winter nights when the wind and rain howled round the farmhouse. They tapped on the windows and rattled the doors like a couple of playful children. It was lonely with only the fire and the crackling radio for company. He had almost owned a television once. He found it in a skip. But, after weeks of tinkering with it, he gave up and returned it to its resting place. The radio was just as good, he decided. And he loved reading. He liked true crime stories and books about farming. He was a regular at the library. A visit every three weeks without fail. His mam had not approved of buying books. “Why buy them when you can get them for free?” she used to say.

His mam knew the value of money. She could make a pound stretch further than anyone else he knew. Take soap for instance. She kept all the ends, melted them down, then pressed them together to make a new bar. She was a whiz with an onion too. Used every scrap of it. Even the papery skin went into stews. No one could do more with the weekly Sunday roast than she could. Sliced and reheated with gravy on Monday. Served cold with boiled potatoes on Tuesday. Meat and potato rissoles on Wednesday and scraped to the bone with a salad on Thursday.

Now that he thought about it, he had never heard her grumble about cooking on the old turf-fired stove. She never minded giving the clothes a good scrub on the washboard. No new-fangled washing machines for her. Not like Julie, who said she would rather die than stand scrubbing collars with a bar of soap.

Meany knew all about Julie’s Dublin apartment. If she needed heat she just flicked a switch. The same with the kettle. A jug-kettle, she called it. She had an iron that jetted out water at the touch of a button. And, if she was not in the humour to talk to someone, she let her answerphone take over.

“I couldn’t live without all my mod cons,” she told Meany.

Meany walked slowly back to the table and picked up his drink.

“You’re very quiet tonight, Meany. Has Julie dumped you?” Tom Scully called over from the bar, with a grin.

“Her mam’s bad,” Meany explained in his quiet, good-natured way.

Tom was always sniffing around Julie. Chatting her up. He fancied her like mad. She thought he was a bit of a poser. She’d come across enough of those in Dublin.

“So when’s the big day then?” Tom jeered.

“What big day?” Meany asked innocently.

“Come on, you know what I mean,” Tom laughed.

Meany frowned but ignored the question. It was naming the big day that was the cause of all his troubles. He thought of nothing else. Even in his sleep. And there had been precious little of that these past few weeks. Tom’s teasing did not usually rattle him. But Meany was not in the mood for his nonsense tonight. He had a lot of thinking to do.