The Closet of Savage Mementos Read Online Free Page B

man.
    Verity is on my mind – Robin has written to say that she is drinking too much again and he is worried about her. This is the never-ending story of our mother, the binge-and-rest pattern of her life. Part of me doesn’t want to know and part of me needs to keep one eye open to her peaks and troughs.
    Back in Dublin, I worked part time in a camera shop. Verity came to see me there one of the last days before I left for Scotland. Even without studying the dough-puffed skin of her face, I knew she had drink on her. Walking from the door to the till, Verity slapped her toes to the floor with aggravated care. Her head was thrown back to give the illusion of control; she stopped when she got to the desk and gripped the counter. I looked at her mouth – set tight like a turtle’s – and her squinched up eyes. It had been a quiet day; the shop floor was empty. The air was heavy with the smell of technology and warm from the display lights. I waited.
    ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Verity said, swinging on her feet, ‘you should have a baby. That would sort you out.’
    ‘Sort me out?’
    ‘You wouldn’t need to go running off to some poxy village in the Scottish Highlands. Why do you need to go there anyway?’
    ‘I like tartan, Mam.’
    ‘You like tartan? God almighty. Be serious, Lillis.’ She swiped at her mouth, dragging her lips sideways.
    ‘You’re drunk, Mother’
    ‘I had a glass of wine with my lunch,’ she said slowly, looking past me; her head bobbed.
    ‘It’s four o’clock – it must’ve been a long, late lunch.’
    ‘Anyway, I want to be a grandmother. All my friends have little ones to fuss over. Tiny doteens to dress up and take around in prams. I have no one, no babies to mind, and it doesn’t look like Robin is ever going to get married, so you…’ Verity seemed to lose her words; she let her face collapse, then looked at me. ‘I’m tired, Lillis. Take me home, sweetheart.’
    ‘I’m working.’
    ‘Lil.’ My mother put out her hand: it was big, vein-roped, useless. ‘Please, I need to go home.’ The small, pathetic voice she used made me move. I told her to sit while I locked up the shop. Verity waited in silence, not speaking again until she was hunched in the back seat of a taxi, oozing the sweet-sick smell of alcohol.
    ‘I hate Mary Cantwell,’ she said.
    We pulled up in front of my childhood home and stopped. ‘How many grandkids has Mrs Cantwell got now?’
    ‘Seven.’
     

Chapter Three
    I watched the quivering lights reflected on the river Liffey while I waited for Robin. We always met on Grattan Bridge – near his flat and my bus stop – and I draped over its low railing, looking at the liver-dark water and the pale, sensuous curve of the Ha’penny Bridge. Even in the dusk light I could make out Robin’s loping form on the quay as he came towards me: he swanked when he walked, just like Verity. He lolloped onto the bridge – a TV cowboy – and performed for me: pelvis jutted out, hand on his hip. I laughed, went forward to meet him and gave him a hug.
    ‘How are you? Looking good, anyway,’ I said.
    He held me away from him. ‘You look good too. For a hippy.’
    We walked arm-in-arm along the quay towards The Bachelor Inn for our first drink. Town was busy though it was still early. A coven of women, dressed in matching pink tops, burst out of Liffey Street and ran up the Ha’penny Bridge, screeching. I kept pace with Robin’s long stride and sucked in the exhaust and river stench of the city. In the pub, Robin sat with his back to the wall and I took the high stool opposite him; he winked at the bar girl who took our drinks order.
    ‘Don’t be giving her false hope,’ I said, and Robin stuck out his tongue. ‘Rob, I went home the other day, to see Verity.’
    ‘Oh?’ He fiddled with his shirt buttons.
    ‘Look at you, you have no interest. She keeps saying how much she would love to see you, and that you never ring her, and she might as well not have a