Erotic Refugees (18 page)

“
So has any progress been
made on this fine day?”

“
Hell yeah,” Rob said,
sitting down beside her. “Look here, the calendar's gettin' legs at
last.”

Milly leaned over and studied
the screen for a while. “Doesn't look like you're parsing that
properly—”

“
Well I would if you
haven't suddenly up and changed the XML structure yer sendin'
me—”

“
My data's just fine,
it's not my fault you don't know how to deal with it. And if my XML
is too hard for you, then go find another girl with easier XML,
okay? And how has the rest of it been going?”

Rob took her through his
progress, step by step. Milly, he had discovered, was a pleasure to
work with. She rarely pushed her own opinion on him, and simply
pointed out why she thought a certain function would work or not,
leaving it up to him to decide what to do about it. She, in turn,
did her own work with blinding speed and kept Rob informed in
short, precise mails about what she had changed in the database and
why. If she'd been younger, and straighter, and singler, and just a
bit more attractive, Rob could have considered marrying her. If
he'd wanted to marry anybody, which at the moment he didn't.

She stood up and slapped him on
the shoulder. “Nice work Irish, keep it up. I'll finish this
verification tonight and set up an e-mail client. I'll pling you
when it's done, okay? Well, that's me, I'm out of here!”

She made her way to the hall,
swept up her carrier bags and then peered around the corner. “And
you should take a look at how a user would update their info in
your interface. Tell me how you want the data structured. You in
tomorrow?”

“
Yeah,” Rob said,
scratching his stubble.

“
Maybe I'll come by and
check up on you.”

“
Ye know, I might be out
for a few hours since I have a bit of shopping to do, or
something—”

“
No you won't,” she said
with a stern look. “You'll be right here, slaving away for me and
spinning gold from hay. Just be present between three and five and
I'll swing by some time then. See you!”

She closed the door and Rob
listened to her footsteps as she bounded down the steps and then
the bang of the exterior door as she left the building. He stared
at the space she'd just occupied and gave an exhausted shake of his
head. The girl was a whirlwind. She almost inspired him to work as
hard as she did. Almost.

He did, however, work for a
full hour after Milly had left, as his head was buzzing with fresh
ideas. After that his enthusiasm drained away and he got up to boil
some water. With a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth
he made some instant coffee and carried it to the other room where
he happened to notice the telephone. Oh right, he was going to call
home and talk to Karen. It was a bit early though, and if she was
out for the day she wouldn't be back yet. Still, it was worth a
shot, and it would at least give him time to smoke his
cigarette.

He sat on the bed and
dialled the number of the house, one of the few he actually knew by
heart these days. He lay back with a groan, crossed his sockless
feet on the pillow and fixed his gaze on the ceiling while the good
old Irish call tone came through—
buup-buuuuup, buup-buuuuup
. It
rang five times, then six, and Rob was close to hanging up when a
breathless voice finally answered.

“
Hello?”

“
Uh, hallo dad. How's
tricks?”

There came a fumbling sound as
his father moved the receiver from one hand to the other. “Oh fine,
it's just fine here. And you're well, I suppose. Grand, that's
grand. Well, I'll get your mother.”

The receiver was put down with
a clunk and Rob heard “Sally!” echoing around the house. Rob
imagined his mother wiping her hands on a tea towel before hurrying
to the phone with a look of urgency.

“
Robert, I was hoping to
hear from you. Is everything well? Are you getting by?” Rob could
tell from her tone that she assumed he wanted money. Which wasn't a
wild assumption on her part, because very often he did. Just not
now.

“
Yeah, I've fine, no
problems over here.”

“
Well that's good, that's
good,” his mother said. “But wait till I tell you what happened to
the Sheehans. You remember David, that blaggard of a son of
theirs?”

Rob made the appropriate noises
and let her talk, waiting for the moment when it felt okay to
interrupt her. As soon as a pause appeared in the monologue he
jumped in with honed reflexes.

“
Right then,” he said.
“Karen, I wonder if—”

“
Oh yes,” his mother said
brightly. “Karen, I forget! Tell her she left behind that learning
Swedish book I bought her. I had to order it in at Quinn’s
specially, you know. She's not there now, is she? I mean, I did
talk to her this morning, but if she's there now…”

“
Um,” Rob said and sat
up. What did his mother just say? That Karen was with him? He
looked around the flat just in case she was, and he hadn't noticed.
He quickly confirmed that she wasn't. But then why did his mother
think she was? What was his loopy sister playing at now?

“
Robert? I said she's not
there, is she…?”

“
Ah, no, not … at the
moment. She just … popped out.”

Suddenly Rob understood what
Karen had wanted him to lie about. It was all blindingly clear. He
thought she was in Ireland but she wasn't, and his mother thought
she was in Sweden but she wasn't. That was a pretty sizeable lie,
as lies went, not to mention a pretty nervy thing to do.

“
Alright then,” his
mother said. “I'll talk to her later. But she's settling down all
right, no problem with the weather, or the language? And she's not
being a bother in the flat, is she? I know she told me not to poke
my nose in but since I'm already talking to you—”

“
No no, it's fine,” Rob
said. “No problems. I'll let her know about the book, alright? I
have to dash now, things to do. Just wanted to say hello. Talk to
ye later!”

He dropped the receiver as if
it were a bag of scorpions and jumped to his feet. He paced for a
while, back and forth and then back some more, feeling everything
beginning to come over a bit Twilight Zone.

What the fuck was Karen playing
at? Should he be worried about her? Well no, since she'd mailed him
a few hours earlier and everything seemed fine. Unless of course
somebody had kidnapped her, stolen her passwords and sent a mail
from her account while pretending to be her. But if that were the
case, then why weren't they sending him ransom demands instead of
website colour schemes?

Still pacing, he tried to
summarise the situation so he had his story straight for the
police, or for when the mother tried to rip his head off, whichever
came first.

It seemed his air-headed
nineteen-year-old sister Karen had left Ireland on her way to
Stockholm. She had failed to arrive. She had told people at both
ends that she was at the other end. She had convinced people to lie
for her while not telling them what they were lying about. And she
had continued to send e-mails and make phone calls as if nothing
out of the ordinary were happening.

That was the situation, and the
big question therefore was this:

Where the crapping hell was
she?

Chapter
20

It took until Thursday for
Eoin's patience to run out, which was a little sooner than
expected. Usually it took a good seven days in Ireland for his fuse
to properly melt. But this time his family were making a special
effort to drive him to distraction.

First of all there were his
sisters, Joan and Maura, and their attempts to fix his “problems”
with Jenny by simply talking about them incessantly. The thing was
they didn't know Jenny very well, possessed scant information about
what had happened, and didn't have any kids of their own. That
didn't stop them from being experts, and they were handing out
advice as if it were cups of tea. And in Eoin's parents' house
there were a great many cups of tea.

Then there was his mother Liz
who, despite Eoin's repeated pleading, stuffed Damien full of
whatever had the most chocolate in it or on it. And not to mention
the leaky taps, the terrible coffee, the ugly wall-to-wall
carpeting, the cars parked on the footpaths, people wearing their
shoes indoors, and potatoes for every single dinner.

Eoin understood that he was
becoming Swedish. No, worse than that, he was becoming nothing, a
man without a land, a foreigner in two countries and a native of
neither. And that didn't feel very fun at all.

Luckily on Friday afternoon his
sanity was rescued by the arrival of his brother Adrian who'd made
the trip from Donegal to Dundalk. Eoin greeted his arrival with
joy, this traveller bearing precious news that didn't involve tea,
or EU grants, or the price of the neighbours' cars and who they
thought they were driving around in something like that and looking
down their noses at the rest of us, the bloody snobs.

Adrian parked his shoddy red
Merc in the drive and Eoin was halfway down the slope before his
brother had even finished locking the doors.

“
Jesus Eoin, you've
looked chirpier, I'll tell you that.” Adrian gave him a quick
man-hug and stepped back to inspect him more closely. “Hmm, still
breathing at least. Good as we could hope for, I
suppose”

Eoin felt calmer already.
Adrian's flippancy was exactly what he needed after five solid days
of his parents. His brother, he noticed, had new glasses with very
minimal frames and they suited his face by drawing attention away
from his very bald head and moving it to his brown eyes and big
friendly mouth. Slightly more wrinkles than the last time he’d seen
him, but still very definitely Adrian.

He patted Eoin on the shoulder
and manoeuvred him up the drive to the house. “No worries, we'll
just put in an appearance and then we'll head off in the car. Have
some nice”—he nudged him—“countryside to show you.”

Eoin wasn't quite sure what
that meant but it didn't really matter. A short car trip at this
stage would be like a week in Thailand. They made for the back of
the house, edging around the corner where the rose bushes pressed
close to the wall, and went in through the scullery door.

Adrian exchanged a brief hello
with the mother and settled down in his usual spot at the kitchen
table. Eoin, as tradition dictated, sat down across from him. He
started to nudge the coasters but Adrian immediately reached out to
collect them all and stacked them at the opposite end of the table.
Eoin glared at him, tapping his fingers, but Adrian just smiled
innocently back.

Liz made herself busy with tea
bags, mugs, plates and milk jugs.

“
Mum,” Adrian said. “It's
fine, I don't want tea—”

“
Of course you'll have
tea Adrian, don't be daft.”

Adrian made a vague gesture,
knowing full well that tea was being prepared and poured,
regardless of his opinion on the subject. Liz then produced a metal
tin of biscuits and popped the lid. Before they could even inspect
the contents Damien dashed in from the living room where he'd been
watching the TV and probably torturing the cat at the same time. He
yelled “biscuit!” and rushed at the box.

“
Just one Damien,” Eoin
said sternly. “Remember what we said.”

The boy snatched a biscuit,
wolfed it down and then stared expectantly at the tin. He glanced
at his father for a second and then turned to his grandmother with
a longer, much sweeter look. She nodded and Damien grabbed another
biscuit and high-tailed it back to the living room before Eoin
could even react.

Eoin stared at Liz in shock.
“Mum!”

She turned back to her tea
making. “I see the child once a year, Eoin. A biscuit won't hurt
him.”

“
You could always fly
over and see him in Sweden,” Eoin muttered. Liz ignored the
comment. She placed the mugs and milk on the table and began
pouring the tea.

“
Oh fine then,” Adrian
said in resignation. “Just pour in out there, Liz. And if I don't
drink it, it'll at least warm the house up.”

Once she had fixed her own tea
and seated herself at the table, Eoin took a biscuit for himself.
He offered the tin to Adrian. “So how are things in
Letterkenny?”

“
Oh, not too bad. Not
much happening in the way of colosseums or opera houses, so I'll be
stuck designing council offices for the near future. It’s shaky
work though, very shaky. Not the best time to have anything to do
with building.”

“
So no nice ones on the
drawing board?”

Adrian laughed and shook his
head. “Nice buildings, here? Well one thing you can't blame the
Irish for is having too much taste, that’s for sure. We were
landscaping a housing development last year, before the money all
evaporated, and I swear you wouldn't see more pillars if you were
in ancient Rome. They’re only half-done and they’ll probably
collapse before the money is ever found to finish them. Which, to
be honest, is probably a good thing.”

“
There's nothing wrong
with those new houses,” Liz said. “I don't know why you're always
coming down on them, Adrian. They're warm and clean and there's
great light in those windows, fantastic for the geraniums. Didn't
my cousin Kate build a two-storey over in Carnroe, and it’s
lovely.”

Adrian rolled his eyes at his
brother and reached for another biscuit. “So any plans for the
day?”