Page 22 of To Hell With It
‘Are you any good?’
‘Not bad.’
‘Fancy it?’ he said with a grin that made my heart race.
I didn’t need to think about my answer.
‘Let’s do it,’ I said.
I picked up my phone and punched my message to Una.
I need those condoms back…
* * *
My grandmother was full of sayings. If she felt a mess she wasa right ruddy wreck. If someone made a fuss of something it wasa hullabaloo.If someone hurt her they couldgo and boil their head(she said that a lot to Una whenShaun did everything butwith Carmel). Another one of her favourites wasI feel like a dead duckwhen she felt rough andshe’s a real bansheewhen her next-door neighbour, Peggy Cary, moaned a lot–mostly about the crows in her garden that appeared every morning at the same time, even though she never fed them.
My grandmother was my best friend. We used to pick apples in the orchard that she owned with my grandfather across the road and make apple pies with them when we got home. We had a great routine. I’d climb the trees and shake their branches and she’d wait below for the apples to fall. She’d bring her basket and a flask of tea and I’d pack us both cheese and pickle sandwiches, then we’d pick the forget-me-nots that grew in bright blue bunches and she’d tell me how her lost love used to leave them for her on her doorstep before she married my grandfather.
On the way home, we’d collect sticks from the lanes to light her fire. I suppose you might say it was picture perfect, only I’d missed out the bit about me having to count the apples before they fell to the ground, which was impossible and extended our day by about two hours.
My grandmother used to tell me that I’d make myself mentally ill with all my habits, (that’s what she called them) but I reassured her that I was mentally ill anyway, so it didn’t matter.
My parents sold the orchard after she died but I still went up there sometimes just to feel like it was still ours, even though Peggy Carey had bought it and flattened all the forget-me-nots with her car that she parked there. I used to hope that the apples would fall and break her car window the way she had broken the flowers.
There were a few hours to kill before quiz night. A few hours with Jack and I had to make them count. But what was fun in Drangan for a tourist? I couldn’t take him apple picking because I’d never be able to do it without counting on repeat. I’d wanted to ask him to pick wild mushrooms with me but I was too scared to follow through in case he said no.
When she was alive, my grandmother said that any man who picked wild mushrooms would be the man for me. When I’d asked her what would happen if I met him in the summer when the mushrooms weren’t out, she’d promised me she’d leave me a sign, and I’d held her to it ever since, even though I had no idea what that sign would be.
A dead duck, maybe?
Or a boiled head?
Or a banshee?
ChapterThirteen
The mushrooms were out. It was September, so they had to be, although I hadn’t actually seen any. Still, I was sure once we got walking there would be plenty and Jack would point them all out and I’d scream inside knowing that my grandmother was giving me her sign – that Jack was the one for me.
The plan was to take him for a picnic; only it had started to drizzle so I had to think of something else that involved being outside. I couldn’t take him to the graveyard as I was pretty sure he’d not be as excited as Una and I always were to read the gravestones and imagine their lives before they’d died.
It was then that I remembered Ned – not the most original name for a donkey but my grandmother named him after he’d wandered into her front garden from the field next door and stuck his head through her kitchen window.
As a girl, I used to love his visits. I always had a carrot ready for when he came to say hello, but what he loved most were apples, so I’d pick a load from the orchard and leave them in a bucket outside.
Ned used to tug at my grandmother’s purple scarf. He’d cover it in donkey slobber but she wouldn’t care. It was his way of saying I love you – or that’s what she used to say anyway – and I think she might have been right because when she died, I’d see him in the field with his ears back and head hung low and no amount of coaxing him back with apples seemed to work. I’d left her scarf on the gatepost for him to smell but then it started to rot so I brought it in because I didn’t want it to disintegrate into nothing.
‘You want to feed a donkey?’ Jack asked in the kitchen after I’d suggested it.
‘Not just any donkey, Ned.’ I beamed. ‘The coolest Irish donkey you’ll ever meet.’
‘New Zealand donkeys are pretty cool,’ he said.
‘Not as cool as Ned.’
‘OK.’ He laughed. ‘I’m the tourist and you’re my tour guide so if that’s what you think is best.’
‘It is.’ I smiled. ‘You’ll need a coat, it’s a bit wet out there.’
