A Keeper(11)

In need of a caffeine fix, and with the twenty-euro note she had found in the pocket of her hoodie, she left the front door on the latch and headed out. The burglars of Buncarragh could help themselves. The only thing she cared about was her passport and that was being guarded by a rat.

Walking into Boost she fought the desire to roll her eyes. It was like stepping into one of the self-consciously hipster haunts in Williamsburg that Zach and his friends thought so much of. The exposed brick behind the counter, the chalkboards hanging from chains, the metal stools placed around old butcher’s blocks. It was a source of amazement to Elizabeth that such a place could exist in Buncarragh. She remembered the old café that Mrs Moore used to run, what had it been called? Coffee something … Pot? The odd thing was that the two women standing in front of her waiting at the counter could have been customers in Mrs Moore’s but here they were ordering skinny lattes and dry cappuccinos. She herself had always felt she was holding on to her Irish roots by stubbornly refusing to order anything other than an adjective-free coffee or tea, but now she found that the whole nation had moved on without her.

Sitting on a high stool, she perched her laptop on a wooden shelf that ran the width of the window. The Wi-Fi password was fullofbeanz. She scrolled through her emails, deleting the junk as she went. She was left with only two that she felt she should actually read.

The first was from Linda Jetter, their downstairs neighbour who had volunteered to look after Shelly the cat. In fact, she had been so keen that Elizabeth was considering offering her the creature full time. Zach had lost interest in Shelly shortly after his persistent pleas to get a cat were answered. Elizabeth had been dealing with her single mother guilt after Elliot’s departure, and she’d agreed to the pet against her better judgement. It didn’t help that she felt obliged to explain to everyone who encountered the cat that he hadn’t been named after the poet. Shelly was simply young Zach’s way of describing the cat’s tortoiseshell markings. The email consisted of four photographs of Shelly in Linda Jetter’s apartment. At best he looked bored, at worst contemptuous. Linda had just written ‘Shelly – feeling right at home!’ Elizabeth quickly typed a brief response, thanking Linda again for her kindness. She wasn’t sure why, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Linda Jetter. All she knew about her was that she was in her late fifties, had never been married and worked as a paralegal secretary in midtown somewhere. It was just that she never seemed to have any sort of social life, and came and went with clockwork precision in one of her sensible suits, carrying her work shoes in an old Lord & Taylor bag. She was probably perfectly happy. In fact, it was likely that she felt just as sorry for the divorced single mother living upstairs.

The other was from Jocelyn, one of her friends at work. They were both in the English Department and shared the Romantics between them. Elizabeth scanned the content. Christ, this was not good news. Jocelyn was wondering if she knew already that Brian Babst and Nicole Togler had dropped out. They had both been taking her ‘Romantics and the Celtic Tradition’. With them gone she had only five students left. Her course felt doomed which was, she thought, strangely Celtic and Romantic. She marked the email unread – she would reply later. The shop must be open by now. She’d grab another coffee to go and head over.

Homemade muffins that looked the same on 34th street as they did in Buncarragh were sitting in a basket by the till and Elizabeth was just about to pick one up when she heard her name being whispered in her ear. She turned to find her cousin Paul with a wide grin spread across his face.

‘I heard you were back!’

‘Yes.’ She wasn’t sure what else to add. She was clearly back.

‘Noelle said she saw you.’

‘Yes. She did.’ Elizabeth searched for a phrase to add so that she seemed less curt. ‘She looked well.’

Happily, the barista interrupted them by asking what she wanted. After she’d ordered she turned back to her cousin. He really hadn’t changed at all. Arms slightly too long for his body, dark hair still falling into his eyes, and that gormless grin. Elizabeth didn’t mind her cousin. As her mother used to say, he had no harm in him.

‘I was coming into the shop to see you, actually.’

‘Always welcome. What do you need?’

‘I saw a rat in Convent Hill.’

‘In the yard?’

‘No. In the house. It was sat up on the kitchen table. I nearly died of the fright.’ Elizabeth liked the feel of the words in her mouth. It was an expression her mother might have used and certainly something Elizabeth herself would never have said on campus or at home.

‘Jesus, that’s fierce. I’ll send young Dermot up later on with a few traps and lay a bit of poison at the back there.’

‘Thanks. That would be great.’ The barista leaned forward and asked for nearly six euros. Elizabeth refused to consider how many dollars that might be. She turned to Paul. ‘Can I get you something?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course.’ She remembered these strange little dances.

‘I’ll have a latte, so. Thanks very much.’

Having placed the order, the two of them were sentenced to wait.

‘This place is new. O’Keefe’s opened it here last year. It’s nice, isn’t it?’

‘Lovely,’ she replied, wondering whether she was lying or not.