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‘It is a good morning,’ Liv said, not sure how she was going to tell them why she rang. ‘Is Dad there?’
‘I’m here.’ He peered into the screen at her and her heart flipped with the love she felt for them both.
‘Good, perhaps you should sit down for what I have to tell you next.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Her mother’s face broke into a thousand furrows. ‘What is it? Is everything okay? What’s happened?’
‘It’s not that bad, but you need to know. I’ve just spoken to Eddie…’
‘Oh God, is he all right?’ Her mother again; perhaps her father expected bad news about Eddie as a default.
‘He’s fine. Hung-over, as usual since it’s Christmas, but I’ve broken things off with him.’
‘Oh?’ Her mother’s voice was high-pitched. It was, Liv realised, the very last thing she expected. Well, it was the last thing Liv had expected to happen this Christmas too.
‘It was time,’ Liv said simply. There was no point telling them about Anya. They would only worry too much. Maybe when she went down for a few days closer to the end of the week, she would tell them then.
‘How are you, darling? It’s…’ Her mother’s whole expression had drained. It was an expression Liv had seen many times in A&E on mothers’ faces as they watched their child fight their way out of whatever had brought them there in the first place.
‘I’m actually fine.’ Liv smiled and in that moment, she actually was. ‘I’ve had a big clear-out of his belongings. I needed to get the flat back to myself and I’m…’ What was the word…? She couldn’t call herself happy at this point, but there was something else.
‘Relieved?’ her father put in. He knew her so well.
‘Yes, Dad. That’s exactly how I feel. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I can breathe again for the first time in a long time.’
‘Thank God.’ Her mother breathed.
‘What your mother means is, she’s delighted that you’re all right, not that this has happened,’ her father put in hastily.
‘I know exactly what she means.’ And Liv did, because they’d probably all be a bit relieved that Barbara Quirke was finally out of their lives for good.
‘He won’t be happy,’ her mother said, because of course, she knew without ever saying so that Eddie Quirke had been on to a good thing.
‘It doesn’t matter what he’ll be now,’ her father said. ‘As long as our lovely Liv is okay, that’s all that matters to us,’ he said and Liv thought she’d burst with gratitude for having both of them as her parents. Really, after all this time, what more could she possibly ask for?
10
‘Hello, Liv?’ Barbara rang that afternoon, which was unusual, because normally when she rang Eddie, it seemed she made a point of not even asking after Liv, much less actually speaking to her and certainly never ringing her up for a friendly chat.
‘Yes, Barbara, how are you?’ Liv was just washing the dishes after lunch. Her parents had ambled out for a walk about the farm and Maya was still at the office.
‘Well, I’m not great, obviously,’ Barbara said and Liv wasn’t sure what to reply next. ‘I’m stranded here without so much as a drop of milk and I’m too nervous to walk up to the supermarket with the state of the footpaths.’ It had frozen over the night before, although, it seemed to be thawing a little more now the winter sun was shining.
‘Oh.’ It took a minute for Liv to realise what she was meant to say next. ‘Well, would you like me to pick up some shopping for you and drop it off?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind?’ Barbara snapped. ‘Only, Eddie had to go on an errand and I don’t know when he’ll be back.’
‘An errand?’ Liv asked a little guiltily, because she didn’t want to alert Barbara to the notion that he might have done a disappearing act after their disagreement on the beach earlier. He regularly did that in Dublin – stormed out after an argument, probably went to the pub and then slept on someone’s sofa for a day or two until he needed to come home for clean clothes and a proper bed to sleep in. In the beginning it had really upset Liv – the idea that he could just walk out the door and leave an argument hanging for days on end, but like everything else about living with Eddie, she’d gotten used to it, and now it didn’t bother her so much.
‘He was bringing Anya back up to Dublin. She has to move out of her apartment apparently.’ Barbara had even less interest in Anya than she had in Liv, presumably. ‘Just so you know, I’m very particular about my shopping…’
It was no surprise that the list was a lot longer than just a bottle of milk and a pound of butter. Outside, snow had fallen even more heavily, so once she had the list taken down, with each of the specific instructions about each item, Liv grabbed the keys of the jeep and headed for the village. Ballycove was breathtakingly pretty this afternoon, Liv thought, as she drove onto the main street. Everything was so crisp and white, idyllic really, beneath another layer of freshly fallen snow. But underneath it, she knew that the ground could be treacherous. She’d already felt the jeep sway on an icy patch as she’d rounded some of the bends on the journey from the farm.
The supermarket was fairly quiet, so Liv grabbed a trolley and began to fill it with the items on the list. Barbara really was very particular; everything was specified down to the last millilitre and flavour. It took an age to get exactly everything on the list.
‘Finally,’ Barbara said as she opened the door for Liv when she arrived with the first of the bags of shopping. ‘Really, where on earth did you go? Timbuktu?’ she said closing out the door and ferrying Liv into the kitchen. Then, because Barbara made a scene about her back apparently playing up, Liv knew she had no option but to put everything away, which was a nightmare, because of course, again, Barbara liked everything just so. By the time everything was packed in the cupboards Liv felt the onset of a nasty migraine. She pulled the receipt from her pocket. The total came to over a hundred euro. ‘Oh, I can’t possibly pay you now,’ Barbara said falling into her seat.
‘Are you all right?’ Liv asked, because the woman looked as if she was taking some sort of turn.
