After You

We stayed until late afternoon, partly because every time I got up to leave, Mum kept pressing more food on us, and partly because having other people to chat to Lily made the situation seem a little less weird and intense. Dad and I moved out to the back garden and the two deckchairs that had somehow failed to rot during another winter (although it was wisest to stay almost completely still once you were in them, just in case).

‘You know your sister has been reading The Female Eunuch? And some old shite called The Women’s Bedroom or something. She says your mother is a classic example of oppressed womanhood, and that the fact your mother disagrees shows how oppressed she is. She’s trying to tell her I should be doing the cooking and cleaning and making out I’m some fecking caveman. But if I dare to say anything back she keeps telling me to “check my privilege”. Check my privilege! I told her I’d be happy to check it if I knew where the hell your mother had put it.’

‘Mum seems fine to me,’ I said. I took a swig of my tea, feeling a faintly guilty pang that the sounds I could hear were Mum washing up.

He looked sideways at me. ‘She hasn’t shaved her legs in three weeks. Three weeks, Lou! If I’m really honest it gives me the heebie-jeebies when they touch me. I’ve been on the sofa for the last two nights. I don’t know, Lou. Why are people never happy just to let things be any more? Your mum was happy, I’m happy. We know what our roles are. I’m the one with hairy legs. She’s the one who fits the rubber gloves. Simple.’

Down the garden, Lily was teaching Thom to make birdcalls using a thick blade of grass. He held it up between his thumbs, but it’s possible that his four missing teeth hampered any sound production, as all that emerged was a raspberry and a light shower of saliva.

We sat in companionable silence for a while, listening to the squawks of the birdcalls, Granddad whistling, and next door’s dog yelping to be let in. I felt happy to be home.

‘So how is Mr Traynor?’ I asked.

‘Ah, he’s grand. You know he’s going to be a daddy again?’

I turned, carefully, in my chair. ‘Really?’

‘Not with Mrs Traynor. She moved out straight after … you know. This is with the red-headed girl, I forget her name.’

‘Della,’ I said, remembering suddenly.

‘That’s the one. They seem to have known each other quite a while, but I think the whole, you know, having-a-baby thing was a bit of a surprise to the both of them.’ Dad cracked open another beer. ‘He’s cheerful enough. I suppose it’s nice for him to have a new son or daughter on the way. Something to focus on.’

Some part of me wanted to judge him. But I could too easily imagine the need to create something good out of what had happened, the desire to climb back out, by whatever means.

They’re only still together because of me, Will had told me, more than once.

‘What do you think he’ll make of Lily?’ I asked.

‘I have no idea, love.’ Dad thought for a bit. ‘I think he’ll be happy. It’s like he’s getting a bit of his son back, isn’t it?’

‘What do you think Mrs Traynor will think?’

‘I don’t know, love. I have no idea where she even lives these days.’

‘Lily’s … quite a handful.’

Dad burst out laughing. ‘You don’t say! You and Treena drove your mother and me half demented for years with your late nights and your boyfriends and your heartbreaks. It’s about time you had some of it coming back your way.’ He took a swig of his beer and chuckled again. ‘It’s good news, love. I’m glad you won’t be on your own in that empty old flat of yours.’

Thom’s grass let out a squawk. His face lit up, and he thrust his blade skyward. We raised our thumbs in salute.

‘Dad.’

He turned to me.

‘You know I’m fine, right?’

‘Yes, love.’ He gave me a gentle shoulder bump. ‘But it’s my job to worry. I’ll be worrying till I’m too old to get out of my chair.’ He looked down at it. ‘Mind you, that might be sooner than I’d like.’

We left shortly before five. In the rear-view mirror Treena was the only one of the family not waving. She stood there, her arms crossed over her chest, her head moving slowly from side to side as she watched us go.

When we got home, Lily disappeared onto the roof. I hadn’t been up there since the accident. I’d told myself the spring weather had made it pointless to try, that the fire escape would be slippery because of the rain, that the sight of all those pots of dead plants would make me feel guilty, but, really, I was afraid. Even thinking about heading up there again made my heart thump harder; it took nothing for me to recall that sense of the world disappearing from beneath me, like a rug pulled from under my feet.

I watched her climb out of the landing window and shouted up that she should come down in twenty minutes. When twenty-five had gone by, I began to get anxious. I called out of the window but only the sound of the traffic came back to me. At thirty-five minutes I found myself, swearing under my breath, climbing out of the hall window onto the fire escape.

It was a warm summer evening and the rooftop asphalt radiated heat. Below us the sounds of the city spelled a lazy Sunday in slow-moving traffic, windows down, music blaring, youths hanging out on street corners, and the distant chargrilled smells of barbecues on other rooftops.

Lily sat on an upturned plant pot, looking out over the City. I stood with my back to the water tank, trying not to feel a reflexive panic whenever she leaned towards the edge.

It had been a mistake to go up there. I felt the asphalt listing gently underneath my feet, like the deck of a ship. I made my way unsteadily to the rusting iron seat, lowering myself into it. My body knew exactly how it felt to stand on that ledge; how the infinitesimal difference between the solid business of living, and the lurch that would end everything could be measured in the smallest of units, in grams, in millimetres, in degrees, and that knowledge made the hairs on my arms prickle and a fine sweat seep through the skin on the back of my neck.

‘Can you come down, Lily?’

‘All your plants have died.’ She was picking at the dead leaves of a desiccated shrub.

‘Yes. Well, I haven’t been up here for months.’

‘You shouldn’t let plants die. It’s cruel.’