The Boy That Never Was Read Online Free PDF Page B

he?’
    The march. The Irish populace rising up in protest at the government and the banks and the IMF and the EU and all the other bogeymen who claimed to be rescuing us. I could see my mother clearly, fingering her pearls likeworry beads, a look of distaste spreading across her face at the shameful prospect of her son-in-law caught on TV looking militant behind an Irish Congress of Trade Unions banner or tossing a petrol bomb or attacking a Guard with a bottle.
    ‘No, Mum. He’s gone into the studio. He’s clearing out the rest of his stuff today, remember?’
    ‘Ah. Yes, I’d forgotten.’ Then, after a pause, she added, ‘He’ll miss that place.’
    ‘I know. It’s hard for him.’
    ‘Still,’ she continued, more briskly now, ‘no point wasting money on rent for a big cold cellar in town when you have all that unused space at home.’
    ‘Yes, Mum,’ I replied, but even as she said the words and I knew they made sense, I felt that small niggle of doubt, and thought of how quiet Harry became lately any time we talked of moving his work space to the garage adjoining the house. He loved his studio. He loved the solitude and privacy of it. I knew that. But it didn’t make financial sense. And then I remembered that last night, as we were standing alongside each other at the sink, doing the dishes, I had offered to help with the move. ‘No, Robin,’ he had said, his voice deadened and flat, his eyes fixed on the dish in his hand, and I had felt the defeat coming off him in waves. With a sudden twinge of remorse, I’d sensed that perhaps it was a mistake. He could be so vulnerable.
    ‘Mind you,’ my mother was saying, ‘if anyone should be marching, it’s you.’
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Yes! Haven’t architects been hit badly by this crisis?’
    ‘Well, yes, but –’
    ‘How many days a week are you working now? Four? Three?’
    ‘Three and a half.’
    ‘Three and a half. And a mortgage to pay on a house that’s falling down about your ears.’
    I felt my heart hardening, and knew the conversation was reaching that tipping point beyond which it would descend into irritated sniping on her part and sullen bullishness on mine.
    ‘Look, Mum, I really should get back to my –’
    ‘Of course! Sorry, love. But look, before you go, can I just check with you about Christmas?’
    ‘Christmas?’ I said, my heart giving a little lurch at what I knew was coming next.
    ‘I thought I would make sure that you and Harry are still coming here for Christmas.’
    ‘Well –’
    ‘Because Mark rang last night and broke the news to us that he is going to be spending Christmas in Vancouver with this new squeeze of his, Suzie.’
    ‘Her name is Suki, Mum.’
    ‘God, yes it is. Although I can’t say it with a straight face. It’s like something you’d call the cat.’
    I laughed despite myself and then I decided it was best just to tell her, rather than avoiding the issue for weeks and forcing myself to blurt out on Christmas Eve that Harry and I had decided to spend this Christmas at home, in our house.
    There followed one shocked moment of silence.
    Then she said, ‘But you always come to us.’
    ‘I know, Mum, but this year, we thought it would be nice to spend it in the house, especially after all the work we’ve been doing …’
    My voice trailed off. It sounded pathetic and threadbare, even to me.
    Into the silence, my mother breathed her discontent. She said, ‘I suppose this is Harry’s idea?’
    A flare of annoyance sparked inside me. Not this again, I thought.
    ‘Actually, it was mine,’ I said archly. ‘I was the one who wanted to spend it here.’
    ‘I see.’
    She let a minute pass, then spoke with weary resignation: ‘Well, you always were headstrong. Never one to seek advice, or take it when it was offered. Insistent on doing your own thing, regardless of the consequences.’
    The words hung in the air between us. We both knew she was thinking about Tangier. I felt a tightening around my heart.