It went on for months.
And it got even better when their Uncle Ben arrived. Now they had to slide through four sets of feet and legs. Being under the table was like being in a cage, and the grown-up legs were like the iron bars. But these iron bars wore slippers or had holes in their socks, and some of them even had hair in the gaps between the socks and trousers. So it was funny—especially once, when Raymond leaned out and pretended he was going to pull one of the black hairs on their dad’s shin. There were the legs of the table too, and the chairs. They made the secret space under the table even more like a cage.
Sometimes Gloria didn’t like being small. But sometimes it was great, like when she was able to slide between the legs and sit with her hair just touching the underside of the table. Sometimes, when the grown-ups were drinking tea, she thought she could feel the heat from a cup coming through the table, on top of her head. It was nice, like a friendly hand. It made her feel relaxed, even when her legs were stiff and her mam’s knee was only a millimeter away from the tip of Gloria’s nose.
There was another thing about their Uncle Ben coming to stay. The grown-ups spent much more time sitting in the kitchen. Chatting, talking—and mumbling.
Chatting was when they were telling one another what they’d done that day, or what they were planning for the next day.
“Add Krispies to the list there. Is there anything worth watching on TV?”
“Your man is on.”
“Who?”
“That fella who used to be on the other thing. The fella with the hair. You know him.”
“I don’t.”
“Ah, you do.”
“I don’t. What about his hair?”
“It’s not his. It’s a rug.”
“Oh, him?”
“Who?”
“I’m not watching him.”
“Who?”
Who? was their granny’s favorite word. Followed by What?
“Add butter to the list too, love. We’re running out.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you who has a rug, closer to home. You know your man who’s going with my cousin Rita?”
“That’s not a wig, is it?”
“It is, yeah.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“Who?”
“How do you know it’s a wig?”
“Gerry from work told me.”
“How does he know?”
“Who?”
“He grew up with him. The same road. He was bald for about five years before the wig arrived.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Well, that’s what Paddy says.”
“Who?”
That was chatting. It was boring, but sometimes funny, sometimes deliberately funny, but most times accidentally. Chatting and laughing usually went together.
Talking was like chatting, but a bit more serious. It was often about work, or money, or things that were happening in Ireland and the world.
“We don’t need them.”
“What?”
“But they’re nice. You can’t have a cup of tea without a biscuit.”
“Yes, you can. It’s easy, look.”
“Ah, now, we’d be in a bad way if we couldn’t have a biscuit with tea.”
“It doesn’t have to be these ones. There are cheaper biscuits.”
“I like these ones.”
Sometimes, Gloria and Raymond couldn’t tell if they were listening to talking or chatting. It was often hard to tell. A chat about the price of biscuits became a conversation about how people were having difficulty paying for all sorts of things—houses, clothes, heating—and about how the government was doing nothing. They weren’t chatting anymore. They were talking.
Then something would happen.
“Well, at least we have our health.”
“That’s true.”
“Speaking of health. Did you see the state of your man next door? He has a belly on him that’d stop the tide from coming in.”
“And she’s thin as a rake.”
They’d be chatting again, and whatever they’d been talking about was forgotten.
“That’s often the way, isn’t it? Fat fella, skinny girl.”
“Or the other way round. Big girls aren’t exactly an endangered species.”
“What?”
When their granny said Who? or What?, one of her dog slippers always jumped a bit, like it was talking too. It was really funny.
Sometimes, without Raymond or Gloria noticing—they were busy trying not to laugh or groan—the chatting would swerve back to talking. Talking often came with sighs and I don’t knows.
“We’ll stay at home this year, will we?”
“Here? In the house, like?”
“We can go somewhere different every day. It’ll be nice.”
“It could end up being as expensive as going somewhere for the two weeks.”
“Not really. If we’re careful.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“It’ll be grand.”
“Ah, sure, Dublin’s great.”
That was their granny. Her slippers were jumping up and down.
“Sure, they come from all over the world to see Dublin.”
“God love them. Did I say sugar?”
“What?”
“On the list. Sugar. Is it there?”
“What?”
“Sugar.”
“Who?”
Then there was mumbling.
Now, the night before Saint Patrick’s Day, as Gloria very carefully opened the bedroom door, they could hear the mumbling coming from downstairs.
“Mimm-bill, mimm-bill,” she whispered.
“Mummm-bull,” Raymond whispered back.
Mumbling was different. Chatting often changed into talking, and back to chatting. But mumbling was always mumbling. It was like a foreign language, heard through walls and floors.
Gloria held the door handle down as far as it would go. She pressed her other hand flat against the door as she pulled it open. This stopped the hinges from groaning. She opened the door slowly but without stopping or hesitating.
Raymond and Gloria didn’t like the mumbling. They didn’t understand it. But one thing about it was clear: Mumbling was very serious. There was never any laughter mixed in with it.
They were on the landing now, about to creep down the stairs. They knew the stairs by heart. They knew the bumps and squeaks of every step. They could have gone up and down with their eyes shut and not holding the banister. Actually, they did that quite a lot—because they’d been told not to. It was brilliant. Especially going down. And they did it for practice, so it would be perfect when they were sneaking down at night. There was only one really loud step, the second one from the bottom. The noise it made—a long spooky metally groan—was caused by a loose nail under the carpet. They knew this because every time he heard the groan their dad would say, “That nail’s on my list for the weekend.” He’d been saying it all their lives. Or sometimes, “That nail’s on my list,” or just, “That’s on the list.”
It was a family joke. If any of them heard a groan, they’d say, “That’s on the list.” It didn’t have to be a stair. Anything that groaned, they said it. A metal gate, a wooden bench. They even said it when they heard a human groan.
Their Uncle Ben had fractured two of his ribs a few years before he’d come to live with them. He wasn’t wrapped in bandages, but he had to take it easy, stay in his house, and do nothing. So they’d gone to visit him with some DVDs and grapes.
“I’m grand, I’m grand,” he kept saying.
But he’d groaned when he was sitting down.
“That’s on the list,” said their mam. “Oh God, sorry, Ben.”
They’d all started laughing, including Uncle Ben, even though laughing was agony for him, and even funnier—and even more agony.
There was only one big groan, but every step had its own small noise
s. Sometimes it felt like the stairs were a bit human. It was like walking down a nice giant, from the top of his head to his feet. He’d sigh and moan as they went, and then the last big groan on the second step—it was like the giant was pretending he was going to stand up and chase them down the hall.
Now, they stepped right over the second step, first Gloria, then Raymond, so they wouldn’t wake the giant. But it was tricky. They had to make sure they didn’t put too much weight on the last step, because it had its own little squeak. If they went too quickly or went right over the last step, their feet would make too much noise when they landed on the hall floor.
They were there now, in the hall. So far, so good. They listened. The mumbles were still coming from the kitchen. No one had heard them. Mission accomplished—so far. It was eight steps to the kitchen door. These were easy to do because there were no squeaky floorboards. Gloria and Raymond could walk quietly over the rug. But there was one big problem. The kitchen door was always open.
They got down on the floor and started to slide.
They didn’t mind things being serious. They knew that not everything could be funny. Laughing was only good when it was a bit of a surprise. They hated people who laughed all the time. They had an auntie called Deirdre who laughed at everything.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning—HAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
She laughed at absolutely everything.
“We’ve no milk.”
“No milk—HAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
They hated her. They didn’t hate her. But they hated when she laughed and she never stopped, so it was hard not to hate her a bit too. She always called Gloria “Glory-Be-to-God.”
“How’s Glory-Be-to-God—HAHAHAHAHAH?”
“It’s her nerves,” their granny told them once, after Auntie Deirdre had laughed when Raymond told her that his goldfish had died. “She’s always been a bit nervous,” their granny explained. “She didn’t mean to be cruel. Here.”
Here was their favorite granny word. It meant she was bending over to get her purse from her handbag, to give them money for sweets. Their mam called it bribery and she didn’t like it.
“You’re spoiling them.”
Raymond and Gloria agreed, but they loved it. Their granny agreed too, but she didn’t care.
“Ah, now, a bit of bribery never hurt anyone,” she always said.
Anyway, Raymond and Gloria knew there was more to life than laughing. When chatting turned into talking, when the grown-ups started getting serious—they didn’t mind that. They knew that food and clothes cost money, and that holidays cost money, and the thing that their parents spoke about as if it was a snake getting ready to bite, the mortgage. They knew about the recession, even though they didn’t know exactly what it was. They watched the news sometimes with their parents, even though it was boring. But their parents liked them to watch it.
“You’ll remember this,” said Gloria’s mam as they watched people celebrating in Egypt.
“Why will I?” Gloria asked.
“You just will,” said her mam.
Gloria was snuggled in beside her.
“It’s a big event,” said her mam. “A revolution.”
Her mam was probably right. Gloria saw things on the news, like the tsunami in Japan, and she knew she’d remember them for the rest of her life. Because they were often so scary and terrible. Or mad—like the woman throwing the cat into the trash bin in England. Gloria would never forget that.
But most of the news was about banks and politicians and people shouting, and the recession and the euro, and men who were older than their dad saying, “Let me explain. It’s quite simple.”
Gloria and Raymond knew it wasn’t simple and that sometimes chatting had to become talking. And they didn’t mind—because they were allowed to listen. There was nothing secret about it. The times were hard, and their mam and dad wanted them to know that.
They had to creep now, slither along the last bit of the hall, so no one in kitchen would see them. The kitchen door was always open. But never wide open. If they stayed on the floor, and if all the adults were sitting at the table, they could wriggle around the door and across the floor without being seen.
Raymond looked first. He waited, then stuck his head around the open door. They were all sitting down. He started to slide, and Gloria followed him.
Mumbling was different. Mumbling was private. The grown-ups only mumbled when they didn’t want the kids to hear what they were saying. Gloria and Raymond hated it. It wasn’t fair and it frightened them—a bit. But mostly it annoyed them.
They loved their Uncle Ben, but the mumbling had started just before he’d come to stay.
Gloria was following Raymond. Her face was nearly touching the soles of his feet. He was fast, but the really amazing thing was, she couldn’t hear him. He could wriggle across the kitchen like an eel she’d once seen on TV moving through water.
There was a space at the end of the table, between Uncle Ben’s boots and their granny’s slippers. Raymond only needed a second. Gloria didn’t have to wait—she was right behind him. He slid in between the feet and sat up, under the table, and crossed his legs in tight. He did all this in what looked like one slick movement. And so did Gloria. Just like a seal—Gloria thought—sliding onto a rock in the zoo.
They sat there now, under the kitchen table, and waited.
CHAPTER 2
We’ve a bit of news for you,” said Gloria’s mam.
Gloria should have known. They’d just had ice cream—in the middle of the week. It had been a trap. She knew that now. She looked at Raymond, and he knew it too.
The ice cream was gone. They couldn’t taste it anymore. “We’ve a bit of news for you.” It was going to be bad. News was nearly always bad. There was the time their mam had told them their granddad had died. There was the time their dad had told them that their cat, Cecil, had gone away and wouldn’t be coming back. And here they were, full of chicken and chocolate chip ice cream, about to be given more bad news, again.
Gloria glared at her mam.
“What?” said her mam.
“What?” said her granny.
“Mam,” said Gloria. “I hate surprises. You know that.”
“Even nice ones?” said her mam.
Gloria didn’t answer. She wasn’t going to play their game. Her mam and dad would just have to tell them the news. Gloria wasn’t going to help them.
“So anyway,” said their mam. “Do you want to tell them?” she asked their dad.
Raymond and Gloria knew it now, for sure. The news was going to be terrible.
“Okay,” said their dad. “Well—”
He stopped. He scratched his chin.
“Your Uncle Ben is coming to stay for a while.”
They didn’t really hear him. They were so ready for something bad, they didn’t actually hear the words or understand them properly.
“What?” said Gloria, just before her granny said it.
“Your Uncle Ben is coming to stay,” said their dad. “For a while.”
It still took a few seconds for it to mean anything. It was like Gloria and Raymond could see each of their dad’s words, like a stream of little clouds across the kitchen, just beneath the ceiling. They had to examine each word again, one by one, until they got to stay.
Then they understood.
And they went mad. Gloria charged for the back door—she had to scream her happiness. Then she changed her mind—she had to hug her parents. Then she screamed anyway—because she couldn’t not scream.
“Oh, Mother of God!” her granny screamed back.
“She hears when she wants to,” said Gloria’s dad, to her mam.
“Ah, come on,” said her mam. “Dead people in Russia could hear that scream.”
“What?” said their granny.
Gloria hugged her granny.
“I’m not really deaf,” her granny whispered. “It’s just more interesting when I am. Shhhhh.”
br /> The “Shhhhh” went straight into Gloria’s ear and made her laugh even more. It was hot in the kitchen by the time they all calmed down.
Gloria sat on her dad’s lap.
This had happened more than two months before Saint Patrick’s Day, just after they’d gone back to school after Christmas.
“When’s he coming?” Raymond asked.
“The weekend,” said his dad. “Probably. It’ll be for a while, just.”
Their Uncle Ben didn’t live far away, in another country or anything—like their Uncle Derek, who lived in Australia. Raymond and Gloria had only ever met their Uncle Derek once. But Ben only lived about ten minutes away.
“Yes,” said their mam. “Just a little while. Till he sorts things out.”
There was a silence then—one of those short, important silences. Gloria couldn’t see her dad’s face, but she could see her mam looking at her dad, and she knew that her dad was looking back at her mam. Gloria thought her mam had probably said something she hadn’t meant to, but Gloria didn’t know what it was. She was in the silly, secret world of adults and she didn’t want to be. So she looked at her mam and asked her.
“What does that mean?”
“What does what—” her mam started, then stopped. She smiled, and started again: “You mean, what did I mean when I said, ‘Till he sorts things out’?”
“Yeah.”
Gloria knew about divorce and stuff. But Uncle Ben wasn’t married and Gloria didn’t think he had a girlfriend. She always checked whenever she was in Ben’s house. She looked for women’s magazines or clothes, or extra stuff in the fridge.
“Well,” said her mam. “Ben’s business is struggling a bit.”
“The recession,” said Raymond.
“That’s right,” said their mam, and she smiled.