‘Ah, the rats.’

  ‘The rats. The FHE—’

  ‘The Fucking Housing Executive.’

  ‘Them. Said anyone who wanted a new unit had to move out of the row houses im-mediately. So we moved in with Granny and Grandpa, who had a squat in Clonard since they’d had to move from their row at Cupar Street, which had been condemned. Just for a while, it was meant to be.’

  I remembered the thermos. ‘More tea?’

  He shook his head and gulped down the stone-cold stuff in his cup, glanced at the costume. ‘Keep going.’

  ‘I am.’ I was. Poke poke poke into the fabric. I was going great guns. ‘Did you get your unit?’

  ‘Well.’ He wiped his mouth.

  ‘Oh dear.’ I looked up. ‘Another problem?’

  He shook his head, as if to say never mind. ‘On moving day—I remember moving day. Everyone in the row was moving. There were pushcarts being lent round from neighbour to neighbour, and it was cheerful even, although everyone was going somewhere worse. I was out in the lane getting in the way of everything when I heard a smashing sound coming from next door and I thought it was the RUC doing a raid and I ran inside to tell Ma and Dad. In the house you could hear the smashing going on next door. Dad said, It’s only Pat next door smashing his basin and his toilet. And all through the morning, there was the sound of glass breaking, and wrenching. What transpired was: we were all meant to smash the windows and the pipes, and tear out the wiring, and pull up the floorboards so there wouldn’t be any squatters coming in after us.’

  He was joking, of course.

  ‘Not joking,’ he said. ‘It was a farce. Dad said—I remember this—he said we weren’t going to do it because the squatters would need it. And Ma said we were doing it alright, or we wouldn’t get a unit. You had to smash the place to go on the list for a unit. If you didn’t smash it, you didn’t go on the list. Ma and Dad argued about it all morning—as if it could get any crazier—while we were loading stuff onto the cart. In the end we left the house without smashing anything, even though the rest of the row looked like a bomb site. Ma was saying to Dad as we trundled away, You’re a fool, you’re an idiot. And we trundled over to Granny and Grandpa’s, which was only a few streets away. But in the night—apparently—he must’ve agreed with her, because he went back and smashed it up. So I heard. The next morning when I woke up, he was in hospital. While he’d been doing the smashing, someone saw him, some jumped-up little IRA gunman, and thought he was robbing the place. They didn’t like petty crims among their ranks, the IRA. And they kneecapped him.’

  He patted for his fags.

  ‘Shot him?’ I’d pricked my finger. Occupational hazard. But not badly. Spot of blood. Which I sucked.

  ‘Yup,’ he said, almost comical. ‘But it was poetic justice, he even said that himself. He’d kneecapped a few Catholic hoods himself, for joyriding. They were tough on their own. They didn’t want trouble, except for the cause. He got new knees. Reconstructive surgery, and compo for them, in the end. That’s how we got the money to come here.’

  He craned his neck to peer at the costume. Looked away.

  The afternoon was wrinkling around us like a poppy, rotten in its seams. He asked me if I’d be able to keep working in the light, or lack of it, the sun just about to go, and I said I could, just, and tried to thread a needle again and again.

  He watched me. ‘If it hadn’t been for the Fucking Housing Executive, we’d never have had the money to leave Ireland. I’ll just step outside.’ He got up from the table, but halfway to the door he discovered through some sleight of hand that his cigarette packet was empty. ‘Actually, I won’t.’ He went and leaned against the windowsill, his back to the light. His silhouette was like a cast in my eye. He drummed his fingers on the sill.

  ‘You must’ve got your unit,’ I said, ‘after all that smashing. After the trouble your father went to.’

  ‘Trouble. No.’

  I snorted. ‘No!’ Unbecoming. Then tried to unsnort. You can’t.

  ‘It was too late. We weren’t on the list.’

  ‘The two bedrooms, the wardrobes, the hot water, the bath . . . ?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Rats!’

  In out, in out. But the light was crap now.

  ‘Couldn’t put it better myself.’ Mocking (I think). ‘But it was alright. We stayed on in the squat with Granny and Grandpa, and it was fine. There were always people coming and going, my uncles, never a dull moment. And Dreadful and Frightful.’ He smiled and rearranged his legs. A rustle. ‘How long now?’

  ‘Not long. Dreadful and Frightful?’

  ‘My second cousins, Ma’s cousins, Deirdre and Finoula. They’d totter up the lane in their high heels and their furry jackets. Hey-ho.’ Here the client did a little cross-dressing manoeuvre. ‘They were scary but they’d give all the kids money for sweets. Piss off, they’d say, piss off to the shops. They were ship girls. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were. Granny would go all lemon-lipped and retire to bed when they came round. My dad would go out. He had his mates anyway. (They’d lean against the houses. There was a greasy mark right down the row from it.) Dreadful and Frightful would sit at the table sipping tea. Give Aunty our love. They’d been to Liverpool and they’d tell Ma she should get out of this dump and come to Liverpool. Us kids would stand around listening, our mouths gummed up with toffee. Dreadful and Frightful would say, Little pigs have big ears. Go and play in the middle of the road. But in fact,’ (as if he’d just thought of this) ‘it worked out well us being there, because Granny and Grandpa got sick and Ma looked after them. They had these terrible coughs.’

  He looked out over Newton Gully. ‘It’s rush hour but there are hardly any cars.’ He came over from the window and stood close to me.

  I’d stopped sewing. There was a bit to go, not much. The light had gone yellower, like magnesium, and would burn out soon. ‘It’s the Blackout.’

  ‘Will it be finished today?’

  ‘The Blackout? Hope so.’

  ‘Not the Blackout! The costume.’

  ‘I know.’

  He stood watching. I snipped a bit. Thin air, actually. I asked him what happened and he said nothing happened. They stayed on in the squat for a couple of years. I asked him if it was terrible. He said, Nah, it was alright, it was fine. I thought Art might be home soon, but so? Could I not have a client telling me a story in the dusk?

  ‘But it’s already been an hour, surely. Yes it has, look.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s after half past eight.’

  ‘Oh.’ I held out the costume but he didn’t look at it. ‘It’s almost finished. But the light’s going. Unfortunately.’

  He clicked his tongue and looked worried. ‘Tomorrow then,’ he said. ‘It can’t be too much longer, can it?’

  ‘No.’ I shook my head.

  He rustled himself together, briefcase, jacket. I stood up. It was very dim in the room as he made his way out.

  At the front door he said, ‘You’re sure it’ll be done?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  He smiled as if relieved, as if it was already done. He stood back and looked at the villa. ‘This house’d be worth a bit.’

  ‘We’re lucky,’ I apologised. ‘Art’s parents. They bought four of them.’

  He did a single, big-gauge nod, as if everything had fallen into place. ‘They must be worth a bit.’

  I told him about ‘the farm’ and the Taranaki Dried Fruit Company.

  ‘Oh, they own that?’ He was a bit surprised. ‘They’re in trouble, aren’t they?’

  I said I didn’t think so.

  ‘No, they are. So I’ve heard,’ he said.

  I was kind of taken aback.

  ‘I’m sure they’re getting advice,’ he said.

  I thought about it for a moment and said, ‘What do you think they should do?’

  He shrugged. ‘Pull in their horns. Be prepared to lay off a few staff, as a last resort.’

  ‘Should they warn them?’

  ‘The staff? Of course not! Unless they want to be left in the lurch. You don’t want people walking out. If they have to sell in the end, they’ll want the business fully functioning.’

  I was almost taking notes.

  ‘The vultures will be circling,’ he said.

  I shuddered, there on the cooling veranda. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘No problem.’ The client thumped down the steps and batted away fronds on the front path. On the street I could just see him looking at the row of houses as if he was checking out a woman’s arse.

  •

  When the client had driven off I noticed that a box had been delivered to the veranda. I lugged it over to the doorstep and ripped it open. Prue-short-for-Prudence had sent a relief package from ‘the farm’ to tide us over during the Blackout. Stone fruit in trays, each piece wrapped in purple tissue; tinned oysters, candles, woollen socks, even though it was February. And also, cellophane bag after cellophane bag of dried fruit from, yes, the Taranaki Dried Fruit Company. Oh well, it was better than a slap across the face with a piece of dead fish. Art groaned when he came up the steps a few minutes later and saw the trays. Poor Art. I would’ve loved to have been sent supplies by my family, but that’s because they wouldn’t cross the road to piss on you. It wasn’t Art’s fault that his folks were industrious and clannish. The same traits that prompted the box of goodies had made them expand all over Taranaki, and then Wellington, with their big leadlighted bungalows, and in Auckland—the very row of villas we lived in. It also made them smug, self-serving bigots, but you can’t have everything. I took this in in a heartbeat when I first met them.

  Change of subject but not entirely: when I encountered Prue and Bert’s politeness for the first time up on ‘the farm’ one weekend, I knew they’d be every ist under the sun. Sure enough, on hearing my name, Prue paused for a minute, a fixed smile on her face, and said, ‘Sligo. What kind of a name is that?’ I knew what she meant, even though I’d been brought up as atheist as hell. I felt a rush of solidarity with my poor Catholic forebears. I wanted to say, Actually, we’re Hibernians, the Pope is too radical for us, the Pope is a hippy. But I didn’t, because, well, because I loved this boy, Art. I loved him. And because I’m polite. (Remember, that’s how I got into the mess with the dress. I should’ve told Trisha to run a mile, I should’ve told the client to scram, when Milly arrived I should’ve thrown open my workroom door and said, See for yourself.) So when Prue asked about my name, I told her I didn’t know anything about it, which was true, and we moved on, and Bert, spilling over with hospitality, pointed through the big picture window at the hills—There was a Maori pa up there, there was a battle, see where the sheep are running. It wasn’t so bad. It took a weight off your shoulders.

  Art hefted the box along the passage (I did love our gender roles). I followed, saying long day at LambChop kind of thing. Oh, he said, a bit breathless, he hadn’t been at LambChop all this time, he’d been at Glenda and Grant’s charging his laptop. That’s strange, I said, I thought they had no power. They’d found a temporary flat, said Art, in Sandringham. Couldn’t stand the fun of roughing it anymore. We sniggered. Art said he’d meant to tell me, he’d dropped around there the last few evenings after work—his diss. No need to explain, I said. Seriously, we weren’t the kind of couple that keeps tabs on each other all the time.

  In the kitchen we twitched our noses—the pong of the waste disposal was getting industrial strength.

  ‘We can’t eat in here,’ I said. I got up and opened the cupboard under the waste-disposal unit. The innards looked complicated. ‘What do we do?’

  Art said I could search him, and oh, apropos his dissertation, he’d seen some anti-Pinnacle Power graffiti around town that was quite subversive. Not that it was exactly settler, but it might be useful as some kind of epilogue. Perhaps the Blackout was a corporate plot to kill small businesses? To be honest, though, he said, he was getting tired of ephemera. So was I, frankly, I said.

  We sat on the back doorstep (away from the smell) with a candle and gorged on the oysters, ate some dried apples and prunes (even though I’d said I’d never look at another piece of dried fruit in my life) and put on the socks, even though it was February. Kill me, I said, I’m a small business. We laughed. Art went thoughtful and said he thought his mother wasn’t doing as well as she used to, apropos the dried fruit. I said, Oh? For some reason a buzz of transgression ran through me, and I remembered the advice of the client. Just an impression, said Art, about the business; he didn’t know anything.

  Normally I told Art about my clients, I told him anecdotes. We laughed. But I hadn’t mentioned this one. ‘I have this client,’ I said. I was a little breathless.

  Art said he thought I didn’t have any clients at the moment, thank you kindly to the Blackout. I told him I had one—oh, and Mabel—and he thought that was good. It was, it was good. I ploughed on.

  ‘This client said he’d heard the company wasn’t doing well.’

  ‘What does he know?’ asked Art, a trifle defensive.

  ‘He’s an investment banker.’

  Art said, Oh. He was sure his mother would be getting her own advice, but anyway, what did the investment banker say?

  ‘The investment banker said they should be pulling in their horns,’ I said. ‘And they should prepare to lay off staff.’

  Art shook his spiky head. ‘Mother would never lay off the Murus, unless she had to.’

  ‘He said the vultures will be circling.’

  Art looked at me, a little frown stamped between his eyes like the edge of a pie crust. ‘Vultures?’

  I nodded. ‘Circling. Should you mention this to them?’

  ‘Perhaps I will,’ he said.

  Then I said they must have lots to go on with, his parents. The villas, for a start, and I bet they had investments stashed away all over the place.

  They did, he said. They would have.

  That night, once again, lying in bed blinking, I tried to pan for light in the darkness.

  19

  It was seven-thirtyish when the client arrived on Tuesday. That’s pm, of course. Sunny as hell. He stood in the front room, his shoes very black against the white-painted floorboards. The floorboards were best in summer. In winter they were cold, but in summer.

  ‘Is this after hours?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’

  It was, it was after hours.

  ‘So you can work on it now and finish it today, tonight?’

  I said I could. I sat at the table and gestured for him to do the same. He did, and held his wrist up in the air to look at his watch ostentatiously. He was hilarious. He glared at my hands.

  I’d be finishing it today anyway. I’d finished the reweaving, and now I busily threaded up an embroidery needle with the silver silk, hamming it up for his benefit. Ostentatious? Two can play at that game. The needle. The silk. The scissors.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘No thanks.’ He glanced about the room. ‘You’re still getting work, despite the Blackout?’

  I said yes/no.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘A lot of small businesses are going under. People aren’t coming into the city. Retailers and restaurants have a ninety percent downturn. If there was ever a good time to buy a business, it’d be now.’

  I shook my head in sympathy as I stitched. I might have even clicked my tongue like people from two generations ago. ‘I had a backlog,’ I added, in case he thought I was putting other jobs in front of his. This was partly true: I had had a backlog. Last week.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see he was still gawping about. ‘But I guess you’re on the very edge of the Blackout zone. And your overheads would be minimal, wouldn’t they?’

  I nodded. I’d started in on the edge of the knotwork. Not that there was a lot to do.

  He leaned back in the chair to wait. Carefully, so it didn’t creak. He folded his arms.

  I did my neat silver stitches. I was going like nobody’s business. I’d be done soon.

  He watched me with his arms set in stone.

  ‘What were we talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Your business.’

  ‘No, no. Well, yeah, but why your parents picked out Trisha for you.’

  ‘Oh, yesterday. Was it?’ He looked genuinely mystified. ‘I finished with that.’

  ‘And the rats,’ I said.

  ‘The rats weren’t that bad. I was embroidering.’

  We laughed.

  ‘Wine?’

  He shook his head in a slight trance. Wine?

  ‘No thanks. I have to go soon. I have to drive.’

  ‘Okay. And there was Dreadful and Frightful. Yesterday.’

  ‘God, yeah, Dreadful and Frightful!’

  ‘In order to get to Trisha.’

  ‘Well, only because you wouldn’t understand the Trisha thing.’

  But I did. I did understand. I just wanted to hear it.

  I’d met Trisha. I’d met all the members of the poxy little love triangle.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Tell me about the-thing-to-get-to-Trisha.’

  He smiled behind his hand. Maybe not.

  I stopped. I stopped sewing. ‘This isn’t a joke, is it?’ Because it occurred to me all of a sudden that he was having me on. There were no rats, no betrothed, no family fwiend, no Dweadful and Fwightful, no mail-order bride. He was just spinning me a yarn so I’d keep sewing.

  He was offended, or mock-offended. ‘No, it isn’t a joke. It’s no joke.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What’s the time?’ he said. His watch was the size of Big Ben and he was looking at it.

  ‘Um, quarter to eight, give or take.’

  Actually, Big Ben isn’t that big, to use a grindingly obviously post-colonial metaphor.

  ‘Because I have to go soon . . .’ Twisting in his chair. ‘Because Milly.’