from inheriting a penny.
These bitter legacies
are not virtuous work.
They are moral judgement
that turn on a whim.
And then I am Googling you
like I did in the early days,
as though photos used by the media after your death
can tell me more about your life than you did.
You didn’t tell me enough.
And I assumed twenty per cent of what you said was a lie
intended to protect me.
Mr Ward’s third son will not get
the house or the money or the vintage clocks.
Mr Ward’s third son,
at his father’s funeral,
will be calculating how much ketamine he’ll
buy with the proceeds from the family home.
He will get nothing.
But for now
he gets to keep taking his drugs.
Rogers & Cowell are insured.
A claim against them gives me no dilemma.
Everything is a compromise.
One question: what is the payoff?
I tried to look busy,
prepping for court with papers and a soft-leaded pencil
instead of idly waiting.
We were meeting at Gertie Browne’s
instead of in the office to discuss trusts for your boys.
‘You OK for a drink?’
You snuck up somehow from behind,
though I’d chosen a chair by the window
so I’d spot you,
wouldn’t be startled.
I was riveted by a drunk pissing
in a disused telephone box outside.
Not busy.
Simply waiting,
tapping my foot to Sally MacLennane.
‘I got a sparkling water,’ I said,
wondering if it sounded too sensible.
You loosened your scarf, rubbed away the day from your face.
‘I might get a Guinness,’ you said, almost apologetically.
‘You should. They usually have Tayto too.’
‘God, I haven’t eaten Tayto for years.
I’ll get two packets.
And something stronger for you.
I can’t drink alone at lunchtime.’
I hoped that meant we would be there a while.
And we were.
We were there a very long time.
I miss the freckles on your shoulders,
the wispy tufts of hair there
and the clean, soapy smell of you.
Helen shuffles into my office
eating a toasted crumpet,
butter dripping on to the carpet.
‘That weirdo called again yesterday.’
‘Which one?’
‘The one using mystics to find his brother’s will.’
‘Never put him through.’
The phone rings in reception.
She bites into the crumpet
and chews with her mouth open,
ignoring the ringing.
‘I made an appointment for you with Rebecca Taylor,
wife of Callum Mooney.’
‘His name was Connor.’
‘Yeah. She said she didn’t know
why she hadn’t received your calls before.’
Perhaps because I never made a call,
petrified to talk to her.
Face-to-face?
I want it. I don’t want it.
‘Are you going to clean up that butter?’
‘Oh, shit.’ Helen scurries out.
I check my online diary.
2 p.m.
Next Thursday.
I have one week to prepare for Rebecca.
Typically, I am gift-buying at the last minute,
scrounging around a garden centre
for something suitable to give my seven-year-old niece Fiona.
They have cactuses, bushes, shrubs, trees, fruit, spades, gnomes
and wind-chimes that would nicely nettle Nora.
If I were feeling generous I’d buy a fountain,
a fat Buddha with water
trickling down his tummy,
serenity until moss begins to grow
and the useless thing stops working –
fit for a skip.
People who own fountains
must have little else
to distract them.
I saunter along the rows of roses,
blooms almost consumed by summer,
thorns their lingering adornment,
and find myself surrounded by fencing,
latticed and bamboo –
ways to divide people.
A robin whistles from the top of
a squat olive tree.
‘What?’ I say aloud. ‘What do you want?’
I buy birdseed and a feeder.
Nora will be cheesed off.
But then, when is she not?
On a flight back from a St Patrick’s weekend in Cork with Nora,
both of us stinging with hangovers,
the air steward jumped up,
waved his hands
in admonishment.
‘Back to your seat, madam. Back to your seat.’
I only saw the woman from behind, head bowed.
‘It’s really bad. I have to go. I have to go,’ she said.
The steward was crimson.
The seatbelt sign was on. Rules were rules.
‘We’re on the runway, you have to sit down.’
The woman pleaded.
‘It’s really bad. It’s really bad.’
The steward grabbed a phone,
waved it at her like a loaded weapon.
‘Sit. Down.’
She had two humiliations to choose between,
repeated, ‘It’s really bad. It’s really bad.’
‘Let her use the toilet, you barbarian,’ Nora snarled.
She was in sunglasses,
swigging on flat Coke.
Passengers shifted like they understood the woman
and understood the steward,
knew desperation
but respected rules.
The sign was on.
We were about to take off.
What would happen if we did?
Watching her standing in her shame,
begging and trembling,
I was so grateful
this woman wasn’t me,
and felt lucky that all my wrongdoing
was unknown.
Nora unclipped her belt.
‘She’s gonna shit herself, you dickwit.’
‘And I’m going to call security,’ the steward said.
‘Both of you, sit down.’
‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’
The woman turned to face every sitting passenger
and went back to her seat.
Nora sat down too.
‘I think I might be dying,’ she murmured.
The plane juddered, roared, and up we swept,
along with the starlings.
Mum is in the garden,
a glass of Pinot Grigio in one hand,
a can of Vapo in the other,
spraying away wasps.
‘Just come inside,’ I say.
‘And let the little pricks win?’
She keeps her finger on the trigger.
‘Can I get a top-up, pet?’
‘It’s eleven o’clock, Mum.
Wait until after the party.’
She holds her glass aloft.
‘Come on, be a good girl.’
The wasps advance. I pour more.
‘Nothing else until later,’ I tell her.
Mum sprays the air and coughs.
‘You always do what you’re told.
That’s why you’re my favourite,’ she says.
You called when you could have emailed.
‘Just a quick question about trustees.
Is it a good idea to have a backup?