Lilac Bus Read Online Free

flashed quickly out the other. Why should she dig and get dirty in Judy Hickey’s garden for nothing? She had better things to do. When she got back home and there was a note on the kitchen table, she wondered what better things she meant. Her mother had scribbled that Mrs Casey had called to take her for a spin. Mrs Casey had learned to drive late in life and had a dangerous-looking old car which was the joy of her heart. It had brightened life for many people including Nancy’s mother, indeed there was talk of a few of them coming the whole way to Dublin in it. The plan had been that Mrs Casey and Mrs Morris would stay at the flat. After all, Mrs Casey was Mairead’s aunt. Now there would be no flat and no Mairead. Nancy’s heart lurched at the memory of it all.
    And nothing for the lunch and no mention of when the spin would be over, and nothing much in the press or in the little fridge, nothing you could eat. Nancy put on two potatoes to boil and went across to Kennedy’s shop.
    ‘Can I have two small rashers, please?’
    ‘Two pounds is it?’ Kev Kennedy’s father didn’t listen much to people: he was always listening to the radio in the shop.
    ‘No, just two single ones.’
    ‘Huh,’ he said picking two out and weighing them.
    ‘You see my mother hasn’t done the shopping yet so I don’t know what she wants.’
    ‘You can’t go far wrong on two slices of bacon,’ Mr Kennedy agreed, morosely wrapping them in greaseproof paper and putting them in a bag. ‘She’ll never accuse you of getting the family into debt over that.’
    She heard a laugh and to her annoyance noticed that Tom Fitzgerald was in the shop. For some reason she didn’t like him hearing her being made fun of like that.
    ‘Oh, Miss Mouse is a great one to live dangerously,’ he said.
    Nancy managed a smile and went out.
    The afternoon seemed long. There was nothing on the radio, and nothing to read. She washed her two blouses and put them out on the line. She remembered with great annoyance that nobody, not even her mother, had remarked on her perm. What was the point of getting one if people didn’t notice? Paying good money for one of the newest perms. Well, paying money if she had had to: fortunately she hadn’t. At six she heard the banging of car doors and voices.
    ‘Oh, there you are, Nancy.’ Her mother always seemed surprised to see her. ‘Mrs Casey and I’ve been for a great drive altogether.’
    ‘Hallo Mrs Casey. That’s nice,’ Nancy said grumpily.
    ‘Did you get us any supper?’ Her mother looked expectant.
    ‘No. Well, you didn’t say. There wasn’t anything there.’ Nancy was confused.
    ‘Oh, come on Maire, she’s only joking. Surely you’ve something made for your mother, Nancy?’
    Nancy hated Mrs Casey’s arch voice treating her as if she was a slow-minded five-year-old.
    ‘No, why should I have? There was no food there. I presumed my mam was getting something.’
    There was a silence.
    ‘And there was nothing for lunch either,’ she said in an aggrieved tone. ‘I had to go over to Kennedy’s to get rashers.’
    ‘Well we’ll have rashers for our supper,’ Mrs Morris brightened up.
    ‘I’ve eaten them,’ Nancy said.
    ‘All of them?’ Mrs Casey was disbelieving.
    ‘I only got two,’ she said.
    There was another silence.
    ‘Right,’ Mrs Casey said, ‘that settles it. I wanted your mother to come back with me but she said no, that you’d probably have the tea made for us all and she didn’t want to disappoint you. I said it was farfrom likely, judging from what I’d heard. But she had to come back, nothing would do her.’ She was halfway back to the door. ‘Come on, Maire, leave the young people be. . . . They have better things to do than getting tea for the likes of us.’ Nancy looked at her mother, whose face was set in a hard line of disappointment and shame.
    ‘Enjoy your evening then, Nance,’ she said. And they were gone. The car was starting with a series of jumps and