Page 8 of Three Widows

‘Are you going to fill it, or leave it?’ He turned slowly. ‘I don’t know why you’re even up. I never made a sound.’

‘I was just going to make a cup for you before you left.’

‘And have me stopping on the motorway for a piss? Go back to bed and leave me alone. I’ll see you in a few days, and you better have this house sparkling. It’s a tip. You wouldn’t make a dog live in this filth.’

She silently gulped down her tears, a feat she had mastered over the last five years of living with Tyler Keating. The house was shining. Not a thing out of place. Not a mote of dust. She knew all that, but she would still wash and polish and scrub while he was away. There was no point in not doing it. The thought of the consequences was too frightening.

She didn’t say goodbye or safe trip, just backed out of the kitchen and silently made her way up the stairs to the bedroom. Lying on the bed, she wished away the minutes until she heard the front door close and the scream of the engine as he sped away.

Now she wondered if that had all been a manufactured memory. Was that really what had transpired that morning?

Shivering, she quickened her pace, knowing it was impossible to outrun the past.

5

The hangover from hell had taken hold, and Kirby couldn’t lift his head from the pillow. He tasted stale whiskey at the back of his throat and wondered how he could get a drink of water without having to get out of bed. Impossible.

He reached for his phone on the night stand. As his fingers scrabbled around for it, he knocked it to the floor. Leaning over the edge of the bed, he squinted with one eye; it was too painful to open both. The phone had landed beside a shiny black shoe. Both his eyes shot open. A second shoe came into focus, along with a white lacy bra.

‘What the…?’

Each word thumped behind his eyes like an amateur banging at typewriter keys. Agony. As he fell back on the pillow, dizzy, he felt a hand snake over his rotund tummy.

‘Hi. You’re awake,’ she said.

In the few seconds since it had registered that he’d brought a woman home, he’d half hoped it was the lovely Garda Martina Brennan. But he knew he would never be so lucky. Detective Sam McKeown had his claws well and truly dug into Martina, despite his wife finding out about the affair.

Turning, he stared at the top of a blonde head, face down on the pillow beside him. Slowly she looked up at him.

She was fucking gorgeous!

Kirby shook his head, causing more shooting pain.

‘Good morning,’ he managed.

‘You don’t remember last night, do you?’ A little smirk curved her butterfly lips, and he immediately wanted to kiss them.

‘Remember it? Of course I do.’ He was lying. He hadn’t a notion how he came to have her in his bed.

She laughed and buried her face in the pillow again. Her outstretched hand was doing terrible things to him. Not terrible, awesome, except he felt he might throw up any minute from the booze he’d consumed. The taste rose in his throat. Whiskey! After all the promises he’d made to himself, he’d gone out and drunk bloody whiskey.

He needed to use the toilet. How could he extricate himself without offending her? He didn’t want her fingers to stop their magical trails, but he really needed to pee.

‘Hey, I have to go to the bathroom. Can you… you know… wait here until I get back?’

She laughed again, and the sound was so musical he could dance, if he wasn’t dying.

‘I’m not going anywhere yet.’ She turned onto her back and pulled the sheet up to hide her nakedness.

He suffered a frightful flash of awareness. Were the sheets even clean? How could they be? He hadn’t been to the launderette in ages. And where were his underpants? No way was he waddling his naked fat arse across the room.

‘Don’t be worrying,’ she said. ‘I saw it all last night.’

She turned away anyhow, preserving some of his remaining dignity.

In the bathroom, he peed, flushed the toilet and washed his hands. He found a pair of boxers on the floor and quickly pulled them on before glancing at himself in the mirror. The flabby red face staring back at him was his all right, and his bushy hair for once lay flat in sweaty curls against his scalp. Time for a quick shower? No, she might disappear on him.

He ran a toothbrush over his teeth, splashed cold water on his cheeks and rinsed sleep from his eyes. After drying his face, he rooted in the cabinet for something nice to spray on himself. He needed to get rid of the stale odour of alcohol, sweat and sex. Finding a bottle of Old Spice that he’d forgotten he even had, he doused himself liberally and returned to the bedroom.