Other Houses by Paddy O'Reilly

Author:Paddy O'Reilly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Affirm Press
Published: 2022-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

LILY

Shannon said yesterday that my vanishing husband, almost husband, deserves some respect for the years he’s been with us. And, she said, you have no idea what’s going on, so you can’t judge him yet.

She can be so annoying.

I remember him when he was a junkie. I’ve never told him that I’d watched him before he noticed me. I wouldn’t have gone out with him in that state, not dumb enough to date an addict, but there was a wisp of hope about him, like the white trails aeroplanes leave in the sky. Whenever he passed through my checkout I’d smile without meaning to. His mate, the skanky one, left a bad smell and banknotes so grubby I wanted to wash my hands after touching them. They lived in a rotting house where furniture almost walked out the door by itself. Every week something else would spill out into the yard: a couch, a broken kitchen chair, a busted oil heater. I noticed that Janks, although I didn’t know his name then, would slip inside when he saw me, as if he was ashamed, and that seemed to me like a good sign.

Then he got clean, some community program, he told me later, and he moved into a different place, and one day, when I was walking home from the morning shift at the supermarket, he was hanging at the side door of the Sunnyfield Harvest factory, smoking a cigarette with some other workers in their coveralls and blue plastic food-manufacturer boots. He smiled at me and I felt my arm lift and give him a floppy, almost accidental wave, like my body had made a decision without my head being involved. His grin when I did that made his workmates crack up and elbow him and whistle like he’d kicked the winning goal of a grand final.

He came to the supermarket every day for three weeks. Always to my register, no matter if there were three people in line with loaded trolleys. A packet of biscuits, tomato sauce, a can of Coke, a tin of soup, one item a day rolling along the belt and behind the lone groceries, him. Every day, the same conversation.

Do you have Flybuys?

No.

Would you like your receipt?

No, thanks.

Week two he started to buy basics like salt and flour. In the third week he bought potatoes, beans, frozen peas, a pair of white dinner plates. On the Thursday, after I’d rung up a mini lamb roast vacuum-sealed in plastic, he spoke directly to me. I’d already fallen a little for his voice, a clean deep voice like a radio announcer.

Before I pay for the lamb, I’d better check if you like roasts?

I suppose.

How about I make you dinner on Saturday?

Can’t. I have a kid. Saturday’s our big day together.

You could bring her along.

All kinds of ideas went whooshing through my head. He knew my kid was a girl. Could be a stalker. He was happy to have her along. Could be a good man – or a pervert.

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