Somewhere Inside of Happy by Anna McPartlin

Author:Anna McPartlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473508446
Publisher: Transworld

Lynn

Lynn had spent much of the 1980s walking her dog Marvin in her local park. It suited her for many reasons. She could let Marvin off the lead, it was close to home, there was always a little action going on, either in the form of teenagers’ ham-fisted attempts to seduce one another by the trees or little kids trying to murder each other in the play area, and in the summer there was a small bandstand, which hosted local acts and buskers. They weren’t very good but that didn’t matter – the worse they played the better she liked it. She watched the seasons come and go in that park and the local kids grow up. Over the years she came to recognize the faces of the regulars, taking time to chat to some – ‘Ah, there you are, Sofia! How’s that dodgy bowel of yours?’ – and avoiding others like the plague. Geraldine Grey! Keep the head down, Lynn, and say nothing. She loves the smell of her own shite that one. She was comfortable there. It felt like home.

There was a bench she liked to sit on to watch the world go by while Marvin chased bunnies, stalked birds or hounded children for their snacks. It usually remained free even when the park was busy. Lynn came to think of it as hers. Then one day a heavily pregnant woman was sitting on it. I don’t like the look of this one. Lynn would have walked on if she hadn’t been short of breath. Bleedin’ angina. She sat down, holding her chest with one hand and digging in her bag with the other.

The stranger seemed alarmed, jumping to her feet quite quickly for a woman the size of a small elephant. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked, but poor Lynn was in no position to answer. She just stared at the woman, who was now taking off her shoes. ‘There’s a phone box just outside the park – I can be there and back in less than five minutes.’

Lynn shook her head as she retrieved her spray. She opened it and squirted it under her tongue. By now the woman was about to race off.

‘It’s OK,’ Lynn said, able to talk again. ‘Just angina. I’ll be grand.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m fine. Honestly, no need to sprint anywhere.’ She smiled.

The woman plonked herself back on the bench. ‘Thank God. I wasn’t sure I’d make it on these sausages.’ She pointed to her swollen feet.

Lynn looked to the woman’s small canvas shoes. ‘You know you’ll never get them on again?’

‘I do.’ She sighed. ‘I’m Maisie, by the way.’

‘Lynn.’

They sat together for a few minutes. Maisie pointed out her son Jeremy and his best friend Rave: they were having a competition to see who could fly higher.

‘Poor Jeremy, Rave always wins.’ Maisie laughed.

‘Why’s that?’

‘He hates heights,’ she said, ‘but he’d scale Everest for Rave.’

It was getting late and Lynn needed to go home to put on the dinner for her husband and kids.

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