Page 35 of Chaos Theory

THIRTY-THREE

Noon

The smell gets me as soon as we enter the farmhouse kitchen. Garlic, onions, a rich tomatoey tone that vibrates the back of my throat. Home .

Claire Farmer is busy clattering dishes around an Aga stove.

She waves a spoon at us, tells the grown-ups to sit at the table, instructs Lizzie to set out the cutlery, and as for Kobi – well, all she does is raise her eyebrows at him, then at her husband, then returns to the business of pot-stirring.

For a moment I’m transported to another kitchen.

Many kitchens, in fact, but with one thing in common – my mother and her ‘famous’ spaghetti Bolognese.

Spag bol was always one of Mam’s staples, but it wasn’t until the family spent a year in Bologna that she really nailed the dish, switching to tagliatelle instead of spaghetti and braising the meat for hours on end.

Dad and I continued to call it spag bol, in spite of her attempts to make us say ragù .

It was just too much fun to tease her. Dad would tell her she had notions .

She’d withhold his dish until he agreed to say ragù , and he would – but only in his best Scooby-Doo voice.

I never really got the joke, but the two of them would crack up. They always made each other laugh.

The Farmers’ kitchen is just the right size. Big enough to accommodate a family and guests for lunch; small enough to feel cosy. I sit, run my hand over the cotton tablecloth, smiling at the traditional red-and-white check.

Shane and Matthew are discussing the merits of various local hurling teams while Matthew makes minor corrections to Lizzie’s cutlery efforts, replacing plastic doll teaspoons with silverware.

Kobi manages to position himself at the table and Lizzie kneels up on a chair next to him, asking him question upon question.

Topics range from the mechanical – ‘Can you poop?’ – to the existential – ‘Are you alive?’ I was like that as a kid – endless questions.

Shane would probably say I haven’t changed much.

When everyone is seated and settled, I thank the hosts for their hospitality and taste the pasta sauce. My tastebuds think I’ve thrown them a birthday party. ‘This is so good,’ I breathe. ‘Don’t tell my mother, but I think she might have competition.’

‘Where are you from, Maeve?’ asks Claire. She passes around a basket of garlic bread oozing golden butter. ‘I can’t quite place your accent.’

I smile, but it’s an effort. I don’t want to tell them I’ve been hearing this my whole life.

‘That’s probably because we moved around a lot when I was growing up.

I’m originally from Dublin, but I’ve lived in Boston, Chicago, Cape Town, Tokyo, Barcelona, Madrid, Italy’ – I nod at my plate – ‘including Bologna, actually. This sauce is wonderful.’

‘Impressive,’ says Matthew. ‘I can see why you like tourism then. And where do you call home now? Where do your parents live?’

I pause, my throat suddenly dry. I take a sip of water. ‘Well, my mam’s in Sardinia, actually. She and Dad wanted to retire early there, but it turns out Dad had – how can I put this – other plans.’ I nod at Matthew. ‘You know yourself.’

‘Ah, Maeve, I’m so sorry,’ he says .

‘Thanks. It was nearly three years ago now. And I’m sorry for your’ – I glance at Lizzie but she’s chatting away to Kobi – ‘loss. You must be still in shock.’

Matthew also looks at his daughter. ‘She misses him dreadful. They were the best of pals.’

‘If we’re imposing on you in any way, please tell us,’ I say. ‘We can easily go back to the hotel tonight.’

‘No, no. To be honest with you, work is the only thing keeping us going. That’s what my father used to say – work cures all ills.’ Matthew accepts Claire’s hand, holds it for a moment. ‘You know, even if you know it’s coming, it’s still a shock. I keep forgetting he’s gone, to be honest.’

I smile a little at that. ‘I know exactly what you mean. I got sick of moving around and came back to Dublin to go to college, so I haven’t lived in the same country as my parents for a few years now.

So I keep thinking Dad is still around. I can go days without thinking about him, then it shocks me all over again when I realise that he’s not here or there or, well, anywhere. ’

Shane touches my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Maeve. You never really talk about your parents.’

Claire smiles upon us, offers up a bowl of finely grated Parmesan. ‘And how long have you two been together?’

Shane withdraws his hand. I laugh, glad of the subject change. He can answer this one though.

‘Um,’ he says. ‘We’re’ – he looks at me but I’m not helping him out – ‘not’ – nope, still not helping you – ‘currently…?’ – this word goes up like a question – ‘together.’ Painful .

He swirls pasta onto his fork. A fleck of sauce flies off and lands on the tablecloth, right in the centre of a white square.

‘We just work together,’ I clarify. Time for another pivot. ‘This seems like such an idyllic life you have here. Sorry, I hope that’s not patronising. I’m sure it’s really hard work too. Much harder than what we do, right, Shane?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says through a mouthful of food. ‘They don’t have to sit through the Monday morning meetings. ’

‘We do have a lot of meetings,’ I smile. ‘A lot. Shane has a system for classifying them. He decides within the first minute what kind of meeting it is so he can calculate how much attention he needs to pay. How does it work again?’

‘I’m glad you asked.’ He puts down his fork.

‘It’s your classic traffic light system, really.

Red means mission critical – basically means I’m being fired.

That almost never happens. Although, there was one time recently…

’ He glances at me. I shake my head. ‘Never mind. Amber is my default setting – all I have to do is listen for my name and be able to respond to any questions that come immediately after it. The best kind of meeting is green – when they say at the start they’re going to email a summary or a document or whatever afterwards.

Then you can completely relax and spend the next forty-five minutes thinking about whatever you like.

You just have to remember to nod occasionally.

I usually pretend to take notes; then I don’t even have to make eye contact with anyone. ’

‘Impressive,’ says Claire.

‘Thank you.’ Shane shakes cheese off a spoon until it rains down on his plate.

‘I mean it’s impressive that you trust us enough to tell us all this. What would your boss think of this traffic light system?’

Shane’s mouth drops open.

‘I’m only messing.’ Claire winks at me.

‘Ah, go on out of that,’ says Matthew, laughing. He throws a crust in his wife’s direction. ‘Leave the poor lad alone, Claire. They’re not here for our entertainment. It’s supposed to be the other way around, actually.’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ says Claire. ‘I just get excited when we have visitors. I love hearing about office life. I miss it sometimes.’ She smiles at her daughter. ‘I mean, no regrets obviously. We’re giving her a great life, I think.’

‘What do you miss?’ Shane asks. ‘Genuinely curious.’

‘Oh, you know – the banter, the social life, the clothes…’ She nods at the rack of raincoats and muddy wellington boots by the door .

‘What did you work at before?’ I ask.

‘Project management,’ says Claire. ‘In the same place as Matthew. That’s how we got together, in fact.’

‘That’s where you met?’ I reach for another slice of bread.

‘Not exactly. We actually knew each other from college already. We were part of an extended group of friends. But we didn’t really get to know each other properly until we started working together.’

‘That’s right,’ says Matthew. ‘Seeing each other every day, for months. It wasn’t exactly a whirlwind. More like tectonic plates shifting deep beneath the surface.’

‘Doesn’t that cause earthquakes?’ I ask with a grin.

Matthew laughs. ‘Yes! You could say there was an earthquake in the end. One day Claire didn’t come in to work.

She hadn’t called in sick and she wasn’t answering the phone.

After about an hour of texting all our mutual friends, I couldn’t stand the suspense any more. I went to her house to check on her.’

Claire takes up the story. ‘Would you believe I had got locked in the bathroom? I’d no phone on me, of course. I was actually leaning out the bathroom window, contemplating my options for escape, when Matthew appeared in the backyard. I was never so happy to see him in my life.’

‘She told me her flatmate worked in a hair salon nearby, so I ran off to get her house keys,’ says Matthew. ‘I let myself into the house, but the bathroom door was jammed shut.’

‘It was an old house,’ says Claire. ‘The lock was always getting stuck, but usually we’d be able to jimmy it open. This day it was like the door was cemented shut.’

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘I was talking to her through the door,’ says Matthew. ‘And as we were talking, I suddenly realised two things – one, that she was my best friend, and two, that I really, really needed to see her.’

He exchanges a look with his wife. I can tell they’ve told this story many times but are enjoying the retelling of it, like playing a favourite song .

Claire speaks quietly. ‘It was very dramatic. He kicked the door down.’

‘I had to!’ says Matthew. ‘I’d tried everything else.’

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ says Claire, grinning.

‘Anyway, that changed things between us. I saw him differently after that. It wasn’t just the “hero” thing, being rescued and all that.

I would have gotten out of there myself eventually, somehow.

But he was the only one who came looking for me.

His panic and concern were kind of adorable. ’

‘Can we go back to the hero bit?’ says Matthew, smiling at his wife.

‘And that’s our story. We’ve been together ever since,’ says Claire. She nods towards Lizzie, who’s still conducting a whole separate conversation with Kobi. ‘And now we’ve made a person.’

At this, Kobi slowly turns his head towards us. It occurs to me that Kobi might actually have been listening to both conversations all along. ‘Could you repeat that, please?’ he requests.

‘She doesn’t mean literally,’ I say quickly. I think Kobi is a little bit obsessed with the idea of creation. ‘Sorry, she does mean literally. But she doesn’t mean whatever you’re thinking. She just means they had a baby.’

I look at Shane for help to shut down the conversation, but he just smiles back at me and drinks his water very slowly. Revenge for me leaving him high and dry earlier, probably. Well played.

‘Of course,’ says Kobi. ‘Maeve, you must know that I am somewhat familiar with human biology. Lizzie is the product of sexual intercourse between her parents, and the successful insemination of a fertile egg.’

Shane does a spit-take.

‘Go on, ye boy ah!’ Matthew sings, slapping the table.

Claire bursts out laughing.

‘Mammy, mammy, what’s funny?’ says Lizzie. ‘Can I have a egg?’

The others are collapsing with laughter, but I try to hold it together.

I’m torn between reprimanding Kobi, apologising to our hosts and distracting their little girl.

I shake my head, cover my face, close my eyes.

I can feel the giggle waves rising. The more I try to push them down, the worse it gets.

My rib cage starts shaking. I can hear Matthew slapping the table and whooping.

I feel Shane’s hand gripping my shoulder.

I put my hand on his hand like it’s a life buoy.

But it’s no good and soon I’m drowning in laughter like the rest of them.