Full House (Kindle Single) (A Vintage Short) by Maeve Binchy

Author:Maeve Binchy [Binchy, Maeve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-05-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Lily had settled in very well, too well, Anthony thought. It was a different world nowadays.

He texted his sisters regularly about it all, but he felt that they hadn’t quite taken on board how serious it all was, and how very much life had altered and not for the better.

Lily was a nurse at St Brigid’s hospital; she was gone at seven-thirty in the morning and made her own supper when she came back home. There was no sitting around the kitchen table these evenings. Dad and Mam were always busy, looking at maps of Sicily, painting some old back shed or helping Lily in the thrift shop where she worked a few nights a week.

Some days Lily visited her aunt, the one that Mam knew up in the posh flats. She liked to prepare a little supper for the two of them, she said. It was hard to describe her. She had a nice face, like a Madonna, she could be any age—twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five: impossible to say, really. She had straight fair hair, and she wore a long grey cardigan most of the time. She had her own shelf in the fridge with health foods and funny drinks made from beans or coconuts.

Mam said she was delighted with Lily. A nicer-mannered girl it would be hard to find, and even though she paid good rent she always played a part in the house. She slaved over the place at weekends. There she was now, out digging with Liam in the garden . She was even teaching them to play bridge, a very complicated game where you were meant to be telling your partner what you had in your hand but mainly you told them something ludicrous instead.

Helen and Rosie read these texts and were greatly confused by them.

Had Anthony gone mad? Mam and Dad playing bridge? Separate shelves in the fridge? It didn’t bode well for their return.

—

Helen had offered to pay Maud and Marco for staying in their house but they said no, not at all. She was a friend, she was only going to be there a couple of days, so she must stay like any friend. So she thought she must contribute something—maybe bring them food, but then that was ridiculous since they ran a restaurant themselves.

She meant to think of something else they would like, but she was so busy. There was school work and the threats from the travel agency and the worrying reports from Anthony. There wasn’t a spare minute in the day until she would come in and flop down in front of a comforting plate of meatballs in tomato sauce or linguini with clams. She slept deeply in their small spare room and had a breakfast of salami, cheese and fresh crusty bread, which kept her going all day.

She thought of taking them out for a treat at weekends but somehow that never worked out either. Their restaurant was so busy then, they were never free. And Helen was

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