Chapter Six
Six
When it comes to reconciling with Noreen, Lena knows her timing is lucky.
Rachel is coming home: that means Noreen won’t be wound to snapping point any more, and it also means she’ll be in need of someone to talk to.
All the same, Lena goes in armed. Noreen adores Nutella to the point where she won’t have it in the shop, never mind the house, because she doesn’t trust herself around it.
Dessie gets her a jar on her birthday and one at Christmas, and the rest of the time she does without.
Lena goes into town and buys the biggest jar of Nutella she can find.
When she dings the shop door open, Noreen tries to give her an icy glare, but she’s not constructed for icy glares, either physically or constitutionally, and it comes out looking more like she’s holding in a belch.
“Ah, Nore,” Lena says, penitently. “Don’t be looking at me like that.
Here: I brought you an apology.” She holds up the jar.
Noreen purses up her mouth and sniffs. “It’d take more than that,” she informs Lena, but Lena can tell she’s wavering. Noreen enjoys a good fight, but she hates holding on to a grudge; it gets in the way of conversation.
“We were a pair of snappy cows, the other day,” Lena says. “No way round it. Mammy woulda made the two of us say Hail Marys till we were ready to behave ourselves and make up.” She sees Noreen’s mouth twitch. “I’ll do it if I have to. Is that what you want? Hail Mary full of grace—”
“Jesus, go ’way outa that,” Noreen says, clapping her hands over her ears. “Triggered, isn’t that what the kids say? I’d never admit it to Father Eamonn, but whenever I hear that, all I can see is the look on Mammy’s face, and her standing over us glaring.”
“There’s one for the therapist,” Lena says. She pulls herself up to sit on the counter and opens the jar.
“What therapist? Have you got a therapist?”
“God, no. What for?”
“I thought Cal mighta got you into it. You know what the Americans are like: mad for the therapy. Does Cal do it?”
Lena fishes a couple of spoons out of her jacket pocket and hands one to Noreen. “Where would he even find a therapist, around here?”
“On Zoom, sure. Wee Freya Kelly wouldn’t go to school, and Alice found her a Zoom therapist that’s all the way down in Wexford, and now she does breathing and she’s grand. Cal could have a therapist in Chicago or anywhere.”
“Not that I know of,” Lena says. “But I suppose there’s always secrets in a relationship.”
“I don’t think Dessie has any secrets,” Noreen says.
She takes a big spoonful of Nutella and leans her elbows on the counter to lick it pensively.
Her perm helmet is ragged at the edges, and she looks like she might have lost a bit of weight; her face, normally plump and neat, has a touch of sag under the eyes and the chin.
“I know that sounds like wishful thinking, but d’you know something, Helena, I actually wish he did have.
Some days I wouldn’t even mind if they were bad ones, as long as they were ones I didn’t see coming a mile off. ”
“They wouldn’t be bad ones,” Lena says, scooping out her own spoonful.
“Dessie’s a good man.” She means it. Dessie Duggan wouldn’t be her style, but she appreciates the affectionate stolidity with which he not only weathers but tempers the force of nature that’s Noreen.
Lena’s private opinion is that without Dessie, Noreen would have reached a level of overdrive where someone, possibly Lena, would have knocked her on the head just to get some peace.
“Ah, he is, yeah. I’m not complaining. Just, we’ve our silver anniversary next year, didja realize that?
Twenty-five years. I can’t remember the last time he did anything I wasn’t expecting.
” Noreen sucks on her spoon and gazes into space, considering.
“I’d say you and Cal still get surprises about each other,” she says. “Do you?”
“We do, yeah,” Lena says. “I reckon that’s one reason we’re in no rush to move in together.
This way the surprises get spread out; they’ll last us longer.
” In fact, Cal himself was a big enough surprise that she’s still getting her head around it.
Until he came along she took for granted, without regret, that she’d used up that part of herself with Sean.
“Are you going to actually get married? Ever, like?”
“Being honest,” Lena says, “probably not. We’re happy. I wouldn’t wanta risk messing that up.”
“Fair enough, I s’pose,” Noreen says, after a moment, sounding only half convinced. “I won’t go buying meself a hat, so. I’d just…I’d love to see you settled, d’you know? After everything.”
She’s looking up at Lena appealingly, hoping she won’t take offense. Lena is touched. “I’m settled,” she says. “This is as settled as I get. And sure, it’s not like being married would make any difference. I was good and married to Sean, and then one day he was gone.”
“True enough,” Noreen acknowledges, with a sigh.
She reaches over to take another spoonful.
“Double-dipping,” she says. “And me always telling the kids only a savage would do that. After the last coupla weeks, but, if this is the worst I’m doing, I’m only delighted with myself. I oughta be hoovering up the Valium.”
“Things’ll get better,” Lena says. “Like you said. Now that they’re letting Rachel come home.”
Noreen closes her eyes against that for a second.
“She’s going to the funeral home up in town on Monday.
They’re not having a viewing, I’d say ’cause it’s been so long that— D’you know what, Helena, I can’t even think about it, I’ll be in tears right here—” Noreen tips her head back, so she won’t run her mascara, and takes a couple of deep breaths till she has herself under control again.
“Anyhow,” she says. “The funeral’s on Wednesday, once the last of Fintan’s sisters flies in.
And God forgive me, if Father Eamonn says one feckin’ word about the sin of suicide, I’ll haveta be dug outa him.
I know that’s his job, sins and all that, but there’s a time and a place. ”
“It’ll be grand,” Lena says. “I’ll sit on you till you get a hold of yourself.”
Noreen’s eyes pop. “Helena! Are you coming? To the funeral?”
“Ah, yeah. I can’t let you get yourself arrested. Who’d run this place?”
“Jesus,” Noreen says. She’s staring at Lena, spoon suspended in midair, like she’s wondering whether to book her a doctor appointment. “Actually, like?”
“Look at that,” Lena says. “People can still surprise you, even when you’ve known them all your life. Dessie could be next.”
“How come? I’m not giving out or anything, that’s great, just I never expected—”
Lena shrugs. “I thought about what you said, after. I reckon you’ve a bit of a point. Not a whole one, like, but a small bit.”
“I’ve always got a point,” Noreen informs her, recovering her poise. “You oughta listen to me more. Are you going to call round to Claire?”
“Feck’s sake,” Lena says. “Don’t rush me, girl; one step at a time. How’s she doing?”
Noreen sighs and reaches for the jar again. “Like you’d expect. The older ones are home, so at least she has them around her.”
“Have they any idea why Rachel mighta done it?” Lena asks. It takes an effort, like poking her finger through a membrane and hearing the tiny decisive pop.
“They haven’t a clue. Not a notion. Claire says her course was going grand, she got on great with the family, she never seemed depressed or anxious or any of that, everything was grand.
Isn’t that terrible? Some of the girls think it’d be even worse if she knew the reason, ’cause probably it’d be something small that Rachel woulda got over if she’d only given herself the chance.
But I think it’d be worse not knowing. You’d never stop wondering, like.
If it was something where you coulda helped, if only she’da said it…
” Noreen’s mouth trembles. She takes a bite of her Nutella to manage it.
“What do you reckon yourself?” Lena asks. “If anyone has an idea, it’d be you. Even if it’s not solid enough that you’d say it to Claire.”
Noreen gives her a faintly puzzled look. “I reckon there was something up between herself and Eugene. Most people do, sure.”
“What kinda thing? Did she say something to someone?”
“Not that I heard. Just, I saw them together that afternoon, and they didn’t look great. And she didn’t have any other reason, or not that anyone knows about. So…”
“Would she have found herself another fella, maybe?”
Noreen’s puzzled look sharpens into wariness. “Where’d you hear that?”
“I didn’t,” Lena says. “I wouldn’t blame her, is all.”
Noreen has straightened up from the counter, chins out. “Why would it matter? The poor girl’s dead; what’s it to anyone, either way? And since when did you give a shite about who’s riding who around here?”
“I’m not just asking outa nosiness,” Lena says. “It’s ’cause of Trey.”
That knocks Noreen off track. Her eyes widen. “Are you worried about her?”
Lena shrugs. “She keeps asking about it, is all. Why Rachel did it, why anyone would. I reckon she just wants to understand, but I don’t like her thinking about it all the time, d’you know the way? I don’t like it being on her mind. She seems grand, but so did Rachel, didn’t she?”
The catch in her own voice takes her by surprise. She shrugs again and concentrates on scraping her spoonful level on the edge of the jar.
Noreen gives a sudden, shaky puff of laughter.
“Ah, no, sorry,” she says, flapping a hand, when Lena looks up raising her eyebrows.
“You’ve every right to be worrying; God, aren’t we all.
Just, there was you, back when Sean was alive: ‘I’m not having kids, feck that, too much hassle, too much worry…
’ And now here’s you in the same boat as the rest of us, worrying yourself mental over a child. ”