Two Fridays in April
Roisin Meaney was born in Listowel, County Kerry. She has lived in the US, Canada, Africa and Europe but is now based in Limerick city. She is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including
Love in the Making
,
One Summer
and
Something in Common
, and has also written several children’s books, two of which have been published so far. On the first Saturday of each month, she tells stories to toddlers and their teddies in her local library.
Her motto is ‘Have laptop, will travel’, and she regularly packs her bags and relocates somewhere new in search of writing inspiration. She is also a fan of the Random Acts of Kindness movement: ‘They make me feel as good as the person on the receiving end’.
www.facebook.com/roisin.meaney
After the Wedding
Something in Common
One Summer
The Things We Do For Love
Love in the Making
Half Seven on a Thursday
The People Next Door
The Last Week of May
Putting Out the Stars
The Daisy Picker
Children’s Books:
Don’t Even Think About It
See If I Care
Copyright © 2015 Roisin Meaney
The right of Roisin Meaney to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Ireland in 2015 by HACHETTE BOOKS IRELAND
1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 799538
Hachette Books Ireland
8 Castlecourt Centre
Castleknock
Dublin 15, Ireland
A division of Hachette UK Ltd
338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH
Friday, 2 April (One Year Later)
Friday, 29 April (A Year and A Bit Later)
Coming Soon From Roisin Meaney
This book is dedicated to random acts of kindness,
and the excellent people who commit them
A
s
he pulls down the security grille he hears a wolf whistle. ‘Stop that now,’ he says, not turning around, crouching instead to stab the key into its lock.
A second whistle. Longer, with more feeling. He shakes his head, smiling. ‘Cut that out.’ He straightens up and looks to his left and sees Sean Daly planted in the doorway of the neighbouring butcher’s shop, arms folded.
‘Suits you,’ Sean says, eyeing the lavender bicycle. Grin on his puss.
‘Una’s birthday present.’ He swings a leg over the saddle. ‘Easiest way to deliver it.’
‘What’s this she is now?’
‘Sixteen today.’
Sean shakes his head. ‘Doesn’t be long passing. Haven’t seen her around here for a while.’
‘No – she gave that up.’
He still misses the muffled thump on the shop’s rear door that heralded her arrival each weekday afternoon, her bike propped next to his against the back wall as soon as he let her in. He misses the way she’d fling her schoolbag on the floor and lean against the counter to tell him about her day, smelling of the apple shampoo she’s grown out of now too.
He misses their cycle home together at closing time, after she’d done her homework in the little room behind the shop, after he’d bagged the takings and put them in the safe. All in the past, since she decided she’d prefer to go down the town with her pals after school than hang around with her old man. As it should be, but still he misses it.
‘Won’t feel it,’ Sean says, ‘till she’s bringing home the boys.’
‘Jesus, the fun’ll begin then.’ He pushes off, raising a hand. ‘Be good, see you tomorrow.’
But of course he won’t. He’ll never see Sean again.
It’s bright and crisp today, just the way he likes it. He’s the polar opposite to Daphne, who can’t get enough of the heat, who packs a picnic anytime it looks like there might be a bit of sunshine on the way. Hot weather seeps the energy out of him, leaves him sweaty and wilting. This is the kind of day he loves: cool enough to fog your breath, but nicely lit by a watery sun. Perfect day for a cycle.
He whizzes past the crawling rush-hour vehicles, weaving with ease, despite the too-small bike, around the various obstacles he encounters: the odd pedestrian straying onto the
road, a discarded splayed umbrella, the scattered mushy remains of someone’s bag of chips in the gutter.
Passing parked cars, he watches for signs of an imminently opening door, reminded as he always is of the day he and Daphne met. Her face when it happened, the shock on it, as if she’d been the one to go flying instead of him.
He wonders if he’s been forgiven since the morning, and thinks he probably has: she’s not one to stay mad for long. She didn’t ring him back, though – she must have seen the missed call, heard the message he left. Busy, probably – or letting him stew a bit longer. He wonders if she’s doing a lemon cake for the birthday, his favourite. Although Una prefers chocolate, so he hasn’t much hope.
He’s conscious of the comical figure he must cut, astride a bicycle clearly the wrong size for him, like a huge man squeezed behind the wheel of a Mini. His knees jut out, denied the space to straighten as he pumps the pedals. And the colour of it, not exactly manly. Who cares though? Soon be home. Might give someone a laugh, no harm.
He zooms past a travel agency, thinking of the surprise he’s planning for the end of the month, and his heart does a small skitter. She won’t be mad then – she’ll be far from mad when he breaks it to her. Be nice for them to get away on their own, his mother on standby to move in with Una for the few nights, sworn to secrecy.
He turns off the main road, circles the green, tips a hand to his forehead as he passes the church. Five minutes he’ll be landed. Una gone bowling with pals, not due home till later, he’ll give the bike a bit of a rub with the chamois before she
sees it. Leave it in the hall so it’s the first thing she claps eyes on. Daphne might have a bit of ribbon to tie around the handlebars for a laugh.
He approaches the corner shop, thinks about stopping for a bar of the Turkish Delight she loves – peace offering, in case he needs one. But then he decides against it: forgot to bring a lock for the bike, better not chance leaving it outside. He can always duck back on foot if she’s still a bit frosty.
He whirrs around the corner, onto their road.
A bin lorry roars towards him.
A cat comes flying out from Buckley’s garden.
The bark of the dog that’s chasing it is the last thing he hears.
RIDAY
, 2 A
PRIL
(
ONE YEAR LATER
)
D
APHNE
D
ARLING
T
he day he died, they had a row about the butter. Afterwards, when the horror of it all wouldn’t stop replaying itself in her head, like some forgotten reel of film endlessly and uselessly looping back on itself in a silent projection room, it was that final stupid argument, it was her snapped
Why can’t you ever remember?
that caused her insides to curl and wither with anguish. She fought with him on the day he died.
She pours tea from a yellow pot and adds milk. She stirs, lifts the cup and sips. It’s not quite eight o’clock. She woke before the alarm this morning, and her toes are cold inside their navy wool
socks – she
hates
the cold – but she heard the thrum of the boiler starting up in the utility room a few minutes earlier. Heat is on the way.
As if the butter mattered a damn. As if his forgetting to leave it out of the fridge the night before should have merited a comment, let alone annoyed her. As if it should have stopped her reaching up on tiptoe to press her lips briefly to his, to cradle his face between her palms for a second like she always did just before she left for work – but it
had
stopped her, it had.
There was no goodbye kiss that day, no tenderness at all between them, the day she looked at his living face for the last time. She picked up the beautiful vintage leather briefcase he’d got her for Christmas and left the kitchen – did she even say goodbye? – and he made no attempt to follow her.
She still can’t remember when they last kissed. It kills her; it just plain kills her.
Mo never once offered sympathy. Mo wouldn’t know sympathy if it hopped up and bit her on the behind. Of course she was grieving herself, but she didn’t have to sound so uncaring.
Cut that out right now
, she would order sharply when Daphne was drowning in remorse.
It was a row; married couples row all the time. You think I never had words with Leo? Get some sense. You weren’t to know
–
how could you know what was going to happen?
And unfeeling as her tone was, not a trace of softness in it, Daphne would clutch at the words and pull what comfort she could from them –
married couples row all the time, you weren’t to know
– and she would manage somehow not to go under.
The toasted bread jumps up, causing a corresponding jolt in
her chest. She doesn’t want breakfast, she never feels like it now, but every morning she makes it and eats it because that’s what people do. She goes through the motions, sleepwalking her way through life since he left. She lifts out the toast, drops it onto a plate, reaches for the butter.
The morning of his funeral an envelope addressed to him slid through the letterbox and landed face up on the hall floor. The sight of his name brought a wash of despair so intense she thought she was literally going to fall apart, to disintegrate into small bloodied chunks of bone and flesh. She sank onto the bottom step of the stairs, clammy and nauseous with grief, hugging her knees with frozen hands, heedless of her crumpling black dress.