Small Things Like These(5)

Before long, he caught a hold of himself and concluded that nothing ever did happen again; to each was given days and chances which wouldn’t come back around. And wasn’t it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.

When he looked up, the time was nearing eleven.

Eileen clocked his gaze. ‘It’s well past time ye girls were in bed,’ she said, replacing the iron in a hiss of steam. ‘Go on up now and brush your teeth. And not one peep do I want to hear out of ye before morning.’

Furlong rose then and filled the electric kettle to make up their hot water bottles. When it came up to a boil, he filled the first two, pushing the air from each out in a rubbery little wheeze before twisting the caps on tight. As he waited for the kettle to boil up once more, he thought of the hot water bottle Ned had given him all those Christmases ago, and how, despite his disappointment, he’d been comforted by that gift, nightly, for long afterwards; and how, before the next Christmas had come, he’d reached the end of A Christmas Carol, for Mrs Wilson had encouraged him to use the big dictionary and to look up the words, saying everyone should have a vocabulary, a word he could not find until he discovered the third letter was not a k. The next year, when he’d won first prize for spelling and was given a wooden pencil-case whose sliding top doubled as a ruler, Mrs Wilson had rubbed the top of his head and praised him, as though he was one of her own. ‘You’re a credit to yourself,’ she’d told him. And for a whole day or more, Furlong had gone around feeling a foot taller, believing, in his heart, that he mattered as much as any other child.

*



After the girls had gone to bed and the last of the ironing was folded and put away, Eileen turned off the television and took two sherry glasses from the cabinet which she filled with the Bristol Cream she’d bought to make the trifle. She sighed, sitting in at the Rayburn, then took her shoes off and loosened her hair.

‘Your day was long,’ Furlong said.

‘What matter,’ she said. ‘That much is done. I don’t know why I put the cake on the long finger. There wasn’t another woman I met there this evening who hadn’t hers made.’

‘If you don’t slow down, you’ll meet yourself coming back, Eileen.’

‘No more than yourself.’

‘At least I’ve Sundays off.’

‘You have them off but do you take them, is the question.’

She glanced at the door at the foot of the stairs and lifted herself, as though she could sense whether or not the girls were sleeping.

‘They’re down now,’ she said. ‘Stretch up your hand there, won’t you, and we’ll see what’s in the post.’

Furlong took down the envelopes and together they opened and read over what was there.

‘Isn’t it nice to see them showing a bit of manners and not asking for the sun and stars?’ Eileen said, after a while. ‘We must be doing something right.’

‘Tis mostly your doing,’ Furlong admitted. ‘Where am I ever only away all day then home to the table and up to bed and gone again before they rise.’

‘You’re all right, Bill,’ Eileen said. ‘We’ve not a penny owing, and that’s down to you.’

‘Their spelling has come on rightly – but what about Loretta with her “Deer Santa”?’

It took a while to go over everything and to decide, between them, what should and should not be bought. In the end, they stretched it out to as much as they could afford: a pair of jeans for Kathleen, who’d been watching the ad for 501s on television; a Queen album for Joan, who’d glued herself to the Live Aid concert that summer and had fallen in love with Freddie Mercury. Sheila had written the shortest letter, asking plainly for Scrabble, providing no alternative. They decided on a spinning globe of the world for Grace, who wasn’t sure what she wanted but had written out a long list. Loretta was not in two minds: if Santa would pleese bring Enid Blyton’s Five Go Down to the Sea or Five Run Away Together or both, she was going to leave a big slice of cake out for him and hide another behind the television.

‘There now,’ Eileen said. ‘There’s another job near done. I’ll take the bus to Waterford in the morning and shop while they’re at school.’

‘Would you like me to run you down?’

‘You know you’ll not have time, Bill,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow’s Monday.’

‘I suppose.’

She opened the door of the Rayburn, hesitating, for a moment, before dropping the letters in, on the flame.

‘They’re getting hardy, Eileen.’

‘You know we’ll blink a few times and they’ll be married and gone.’

‘Isn’t that the way.’

‘The years don’t slow down any as they pass.’

She checked the temperature gauge on the oven, whose needle had dropped to very low, where she wanted it, and pulled in a bit tighter.

‘So have you decided what you’re getting me for Christmas?’ she brightened.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Furlong said. ‘I took the hint there this evening with your little gander around by Hanrahan’s.’