4

‘Home sweet home,’ I say as the turn to the cottages materialises as if out of a fog. I’ve no idea where I’ve been these last few minutes. Force myself to slow down, to climb back inside myself, as I drive in second gear up our road. ‘Yaya!’ Tommy shouts. ‘You’re driving like a smelly ole granny! Fasterfasterfaster!’ As soon as I pull on to the kerb outside our house I can sense that we’re being watched. Might have to make that call to the guards after all – this is clear-cut stalking now, harassment. I fling open the front door, then lift Tommy (see what a considerate mother I am, you watching, Mrs O’Nosy?) into the living room, where I settle him on the couch, Herbie hopping up beside him. I run back and retrieve the bag with the wine and the food, then slam my front door and lock it from the inside. Damn, I’d forgotten the grill was unusable, I’ll have to put the fish fingers in the oven. Would that work? ‘MiWadi, Tommy?’ I shout, looking around for the orange squash. The TV is already on, two packs of ten fish fingers are in the oven and the full glass is saluting me, with its pledge to numb and soothe. Ice, clink, cheers. Herbie pads into the kitchen, panting. ‘Ok, Woofter, ok, don’t give me that look. I know you’re hungry. Just a few minutes more.’

‘He’s thirsty, Yaya. Like you,’ Tommy says from the couch. How can he hear with the noise from the TV so loud? I don’t like the tone of his voice. How can a four-year-old be supercilious, act like he knows more than I do? I run water into Herbie’s bowl and no sooner than it touches the floor the dog is lapping, gulping. When was the last time I put water down for him? It was one of the things the people in the pound said: fresh water twice a day. A large dog like him needs plenty of rehydration. ‘Sorry, old boy,’ I say as his big tongue swallows the contents of the bowl, and then he waits patiently for more. I fill and refill the bowl four times, the same number of times I quench my own thirst.

‘Yaya? Are the fishies burning again?’ Jesus, that tone again, and he’s right, again, smoke is seeping from the mouth of the oven. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… My boy parrots me: Fuckety-fuck, he sings. I scrape the carbon off the top and remove all the orange coating, the very thing, the only thing, that entices Tommy to eat them in the first place. Place them bottom-side up in a mound on a plate and present them with a flourish to my son.

The three of us sit side by side on the couch, some humongous guy singing on Britain’s Got Talent, everyone up on their feet and cheering, like at a gladiators’ battle or a public hanging. I know only too well the serpents that seduce one moment and bite the next. How did I – a nobody, from nowhere (suburban Dublin nowhere), with no experience, no connections – ever get accepted into RADA? I look back at my decision to audition and I marvel. Ms Nobody determined to be Ms Somebody! That capacity for self-delusion, it served me sometimes.