‘You just say it. Sometimes you have to be direct. You’re too nice. Take a leaf out of Ines’s book. She wouldn’t be long sending him off. “You must go now.”’

They both laughed at Susie’s dreadful attempt at a Spanish accent.

‘I’m no Ines O’Brien.’

‘And all the better for it,’ Susie said.

‘Poor Ines. It’s funny. Or not funny, so much as strange.’

‘What is?’

‘That we’re all supposedly friends, but nobody really likes her. Robbie can’t stand her.’

Susie gave Mary an odd look. ‘Yes. Well.’ She stopped then as though thinking the better of what she was about to say.

‘Oh – does that sound terrible?’ Mary asked. ‘I should be more charitable. She’s had a tough time.’

‘You mean the infertility?’

Mary nodded.

Susie tilted her head. ‘Was she all that devastated by the news though? She’s not exactly a doting mother with Cora.’

‘But you said it yourself – you said Victor told Tom they were deeply upset by it?’

‘He did,’ Susie conceded. ‘But maybe she just thinks she wants another child. It’s all about optics with that woman.’

Mary smiled to herself. Susie wasn’t above the ‘optics’ of parading her six smartly dressed children down the centre aisle at Mass every Sunday.

‘By the way,’ Susie said, lowering her voice, ‘did I hear there was a police car parked outside the Burkes’ the other night? Tom thought he saw something when he was out walking?’

‘Oh.’ Mary’s cheeks heated up. ‘I didn’t see anything …’

‘Mm. One of the older two in some kind of trouble maybe, hardly Fran or the twins. Not easy for Della on her own.’

‘I really don’t think Della’s kids would—’

Susie cut her off. ‘That is because you’re too nice. Anyway,’ she went on, as they heard the sound of the back door closing, ‘back to Gavin – if you want him gone, you need to say so.’

In the end, it was Lily who inadvertently saved the day. She mentioned to Robbie that she was making tea for her new friend Gavin. Robbie wanted to know more and Lily explained that the three of them – Mary, Lily and Gavin – had tea together every afternoon at the kitchen table. This wasn’t quite an accurate description of events but it was the end of the gardening. Gavin was promised a week in Robbie’s office in July, and he hung up his gardening gloves for good.

He didn’t go away though. At night, when Mary closed the curtains, he was there, leaning against the lamp post across the street from her house. In the mornings, when she was out walking with Lily, he was walking too. Or sitting, or leaning or standing or smoking. Sometimes with Della’s twins and Ellen next door and Aoife from the Grove and the other kids from round and about. Sometimes on his own. Headphones on. Hands in pockets. Watching. Always watching.

21

June 2018

I STRUGGLE TO MATCH Susie’s wide smile when I arrive on her doorstep on Friday morning. Cora’s text from last night is still imprinted on my brain.