Page 29 of Hard
‘And we thought maybe your daddy could go and play rugby this morning while we have—’
‘A chicken spots party!’
‘Come for the communicable disease, stay for the party?’ I ask in a droll tone.
‘Well, not a party exactly,’ Ella says, her gaze rising to mine. ‘Something much more sedate.’
‘Movies and popcorn and fun!’ Louis adds, throwing his arms wide.
‘Din’nae fash,’ Mac tells me. ‘Seems he helped himself to the whole contents of his own sweetie bag in the car on the way over.’
‘Sugar rush?’
‘Aye, crash to follow. But we don’t have to worry about that,’ he says, slapping me on the back. ‘We’ll be on the field.’
‘I feel better already,’ Sorcha says. ‘Maybe we can all go to rugby, and I can get an ice cream from the park.’
‘You can’t go to the park with chickenpox,’ Agnes cuts in, sliding me a stern glance— a stern glance that says,grow a pair, man.She’s dressed for Sunday mass but must have popped in through the back door to see to my guests. She lives in a wee bungalow at the back of the house.
‘But I want to go outside,’ Sorcha says, ‘And you promised I could go to the wedding yesterday.’
I cast my eyes to the ceiling, inhaling a deep breath before lowering my gaze again. Big baby blues stare up at me. Eyes just like her mother’s.
Jesus, please don’t let her turn out like her.
‘I know I promised,’ I reply evenly. ‘But that was before we knew you were going to be ill.’
‘But I told you I feel better.’
‘You mean, apart from having chickenpox,’ I answer wryly.
‘Your daddy had to go to the wedding as part of his work,’ Agnes cuts in.
Aye, work. Because that’s what I was up to last night while my child was ill. Working myself into sexual oblivion over the body of a beautiful and willing girl.
‘And,’ Agnes continues, ‘he needs to go to work to pay for all those trips to that build a wee bear shop you’re so fond of. Can I get anyone a coffee?’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Ella’s says, scrambling to her feet and leaving us to our domestic.
‘But I wanted to wear my new dress.’
Here we go. Sorcha’s not a stroppy kid usually, though she does have a hell of a temper. Good job her tantrums are annual these days, though we did suffer through terrible twos, rotten threes, belligerent fours... all while I was trying to grow an empire.
‘You can wear your lovely frock anytime,’ Agnes responds, picking up the salad bowl, no doubt glad of the opportunity to get rid of it. ‘Why, isn’t your daddy always taking you nice places?’
‘Not today he’s not,’ she replies, whip-sharp. ‘And that’s justeffed in the a.’
Mac snorts, turning it into a cough. But me? My heart sinks, my brows along with it.
‘Whatdid you just say?’
‘Effed in the a,’ she repeats, this time with a little less attitude and much less confidence.
‘And just where did you learn that wee gem, eh?’ I’ll bet not in the school I pay a fucking fortune for her to attend. And yes, so I’m a hypocrite. I might swear like a trooper, but I don’t fucking well do it around—
‘I heard Uncle Will say it,’ she says, holding her chin a fraction higher. ‘He said it to you. Andyoulaughed.’
I’m not laughing now. ‘Well, it’s not the kind of language you should be using,’ I bluster, sounding a bit too much like Agnes. ‘Little girls don’t say those kinds of things.’
