AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He sounds perfectly charming,” she said.
“Oh, she could certainly pick her dates.” I shuddered as Jimmy Boy Dean flickered into my mind’s eye. “I reckon Niamh’s Da was probably the best of a bad bunch – maybe that’s why she’s the sweetest one of us, eh?”
Niamh laughed. “Oh yeah, I get to see him at least twice a year when we walk past him in town. Definitely Father of the Year material. God love her for setting a low bar, eh?”
“Well I don’t think mine can add anything to the mix, I’m afraid,” Lili said. “Feargal, I can only hope yours are paragons of parenthood, so the universe can remain in some semblance of balance.”
Feargal smiled. “Yeah, they’re really good people. Moved across here about fifteen years ago with me and my brother to follow the Irish music scene. They’re as hippy as all hell, but we love them to bits, don’t we?”
“Don’t know what we’d do without them,” Niamh agreed, and gathered up her jacket and handbag. “Right, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just nip to the ladies’ before we go.” As she stood up half of the contents of her bag fell out onto the table. “Jesus but I’m a clumsy oaf,” she said as she gathered together her purse, keys and the various items of make-up that had scattered across the tabletop.
To my surprise just half a minute later Lilith stood up too. “I think I’ll just join Niamh,” she declared.
In all the time I’d known her she’d never struck me as the type to disappear into the toilets in a girls’ huddle, and I could only assume she’d found some reason I hadn’t managed to pick up to have a private chat with Niamh.
I fervently hoped she’d grown fond enough of my sister in the last couple of hours for there to be no bloodshed.
Lilith
The problem was, I liked her. Niamh was a sweet, smart and amazingly undamaged young woman, and despite her habit of hugging anyone within reach I actually felt like this might be an incipient friendship. But in the past hour, although she’d disclosed more about her life than I’d managed in my twenty nine years - everything from her shoe size to a total hero-worship of Gabriel James - there was something massive that she couldn’t bring herself to say to Finn.
When I walked into the toilets Niamh was washing her hands. She gave me a bright, “Hi there!” followed by that beautiful, open, Strachan smile and I hoped that what I was about to say was going to come out right.
I returned the smile with all the warmth I was capable of, and went for it. “Niamh, you can tell your brother, you know?”
It didn’t matter that I’d said it as gently as I could manage; she still reacted like I’d bitten her. “Tell him what?”
“I’m guessing Feargal’s mother is the one who’s babysitting?”
Niamh’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh God, please don’t say anything to Tack. Not yet!”
“Whoa no, hell, I promise you that’s not my intention.” I handed her a paper towel and she took it from me to dab at her eyes.
“It’s just, well, I know this is goin’ to sound daft but it wasn’t planned or anything, especially with me in the middle of my midwifery course and all, and then there’s the age difference, and of course Mam went proper crazy at us…”
I stared at her. “Your mother did? Really?”
Niamh sniffed and nodded. “I know, right? But it was just when she was starting this really angry phase of her illness. She refused to see me all the time I was pregnant, and now it’s too late ‘cos she doesn’t even recognise me, let alone her grandchild.” Her eyes welled with tears again. “Oh shite, I’m makin’ a right fool of myself here, aren’t I?”
I shook my head. “No, not at all. I’m just sorry I upset you. What’s he called?”
“Ah Jesus, you even know we had a boy?”
I gave a sheepish shrug. “You’ve got a pale blue ribbon tied onto your keyring. It was more or less the last piece of the story.”
To my relief, Niamh managed a snot-ridden laugh before she blew her nose on the paper towel. “Y’know, a couple of hundred years ago, you’d be burned as a witch?”
“So I’ve been informed. Fairly frequently.”
“I’ve got a picture in here somewhere,” Niamh said, and rummaged around in her voluminous bag. “He’s called Solstice Finn. ‘Sol’ for short.”
“That’s an… interesting name,” I observed.
“Yeah, I know. It was Feargal’s idea, cos he was born on the summer solstice this year. I mean, he really wasn’t kidding when he said his family are a load of hippies.” She tentatively handed me a dog-eared photograph. “I think it kinda suits the little fella, though. There, see. He’s a sunny little soul.”
I took the picture from her. “Oh thank fuck for that, you actually had a cute one,” I said with genuine relief, as a cheery little putto that Donatello himself could have created looked out at me with those familiar jade-green eyes. “There’s nothing worse than someone showing you a photo of a baby that looks like a shaved chimpanzee, and you end up having to lie through your teeth and say that they look like they ‘have character’, or something equally ridiculous.”
“Ooh, that’s savage,” Niamh laughed again. “I’d ask if you meant that, but I get the idea you’re not one for sugarcoating the truth.” She put the photo back in her bag. “So. Now our big secret’s out, what do you think I should do?”
