Page 54 of To Hell With It
You’re not on your own, I’ll be thinking of you the whole time.
You’ll be asleep.
Not for the first flight.
You will be when I get the next one.
I’ll dream of you then. Call me when you land. You’ll be fine, I promise.
I wanted to keep Una there for as long as possible.
Are you going to Fish and Chips Friday?
Yes, probably.
Who will you go with?
Niall, probably.
Not Carmel?
Fuck off.
Can you remind Niall to check on the woodlice?
Pearl?
Yes?
Turn your bloody phone off.
* * *
‘Hello, dear,’ a little voice with an Irish accent said beside me and I turned to see the old lady with the pale blue coat and black saggy leggings sit down in the seat next to me. She didn’t look like a serial killer. She looked like someone who would read to children and tuck them in with a squeeze.
‘These seats never seem big enough even for my bony bottom.’ She laughed.
‘It’s a bit of a squeeze.’ I smiled.
‘I’m Bunty,’ she said.
‘Pearl.’
‘That’s a beautiful name, not Irish though?’
‘I think it’s English.’
‘Ah, same as me, dear.’
‘Bunty?’
‘Elizabeth, but my father used to call me Bunty. Where are you from?’
‘County Tipperary, and you?’
‘Dublin, born and bred,’ Bunty said.
‘Are you going on holiday?’ I asked.
