Hush Hush by Gabrielle Mullarkey

never let you into your own house again until she
sees proof of you making an effort.’
    ‘I can’t see
anything! My lenses ‒ remember?’
    Conor eyed the front door. ‘ I
can’t see your mum letting you back in with that excuse.’
    Angela raised the letterbox flap
and squinted into the hallway. ‘ Ma!
Open the door. I can’t go out, cos I’m blind as a bat.
Ma? You listening?’
    Sadie’s aproned midriff
shuffled into view. She opened the door a crack and thrust out a
dusty glasses case. Then the door shut again.
    Angela opened the case and
winced. She’d forgotten what Deirdre-from- Coronation - Street dinner-plates they were, complete with pale pink plastic frames. ‘ I
can’t be seen dead in these,’ she announced, snapping the
case shut.
    Conor McGinlay proffered a
guiding arm with slow and deliberate flamboyance for the benefit of
her narrowed gaze.
    ‘I need a coat to go
anywhere,’ she stalled. ‘ It’s
brass monkeys.’
    He peeled off his navy
fleece .
    Before he could hand it to her,
and score even more points for gentlemanly conduct, Angela shoved on
the glasses and hurried down the path ahead of him, looking into the
grass verge as she went. Already, she’d reverted to her
pre-lens stance of hair over face and face bent over a minute
examination of pavement cracks.
    Conor
McGinlay, fleece flung over one wrist, whistled as he unlocked his
car.
    They ended up with coffees in a drive-thru
McDonald’s.
    ‘Not like you to forgo a
nosh-up,’ observed Angela, falling back on the one
characteristic she remembered about him. ‘ By
the way, you drive like a maniac.’
    He stirred his coffee
aggressively. ‘ I do
not! I’m merely assertive.’
    Angela made patterns in spilt
sugar with her fingertip. She bet he was assertive in every situation ‒ including bed.
Hands as big as shovels gripped his coffee. He was stocky rather than
huge, weather-beaten but not haggard. His mouth was a fine, rather
sensitive specimen and his eyes a deep jade green. A bristly stubble
matched his thatch of luxuriant, wavy, collar-length hair. Rachel
would’ve called him ‘ moreish’.
    ‘Giving me marks out of
ten, are you?’ he muttered.
    Angela looked down at the table.
She must’ve been staring.
    That gave Conor McGinlay his
chance to look at her. Second impressions: tall, thin, no boobs to
speak of, marvellous skin (courtesy of the Irish blood, no doubt).
Dead straight, shiny brown hair with a centre parting. The glasses
magnified eyes of a pale, translucent blue. Not a raving beauty, but
then, neither was he. She was restful to look at. Like a watercolour
you wouldn’t mind hanging over the fireplace. Christ, I’m
a sexist, he realised, and grimaced.
    ‘Lousy coffee,’ he
said to Angela, who caught him in mid-grimace.
    ‘How come you were
holidaying alone?’ she asked abruptly. Might as well get the
answers to Rachel’s key questions.
    ‘I wasn’t on holiday.
I go around the world helping to build hotels. I’m a civil
engineer. How come you haven’t got a tan?’
    ‘Oh.’ Blood rushed to
her pale face. ‘ I
just go red and peel. My husband was the same.’
    ‘Er ‒ how long ago did he ‒ ?’
    ‘Over a year,’ she
replied quickly. ‘ Heart
attack. We’d been married sixteen years. No kids or pets.’
    ‘You did better than me. My
wife left me.’
    Angela’s tongue stuck to
the roof of her mouth. She hadn’t expected that. He was big and
bluff ‒ ma ybe he’d
hit his wife?
    ‘It was a civilised
parting,’ he shrugged dejectedly. ‘ I
was always gallivanting off to build hotels, and she got sick of
being stuck at home with Shane, our son. She warned me often enough
before she took off. Can’t say I blame her for calling my
bluff. Shane lives with me. Kate lives in New York. She wanted a
clean break. She’s very creative, a graphic designer. They were
keen to snap her up over there and make her feel appreciated again.’
    ‘So, you have a son?’
echoed Angela feebly. ‘