Nothing On Earth by Conor O'Callaghan

out, missy.’ She wasn’t sure if the girl had ever realized about herself and Marcus, and she would have been mortified by the idea of trying to explain. She kept her phone on vibrate on the counter top in the kitchen, so that its drone was loud and unmistakable even when she was out in the sun.
    â€˜There’s nobody also!’ The drone had become unmistakable to the girl. ‘What must he want?’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜You’re not texting back?’
    â€˜Very little credit. Nosy!’
    Martina took redundancy at the software plant. Her boss, given the circumstances, negotiated a minuscule package on her behalf. She bought creepers and trellis wire for the back wall. She bought sun-loungers in the discount supermarket off the ring road. They walked there: two miles max, and yet she had to drag her niece by the hand for the last bit. They both wore baseball caps and were drenched with sweat by the time they arrived. The supermarket’s inside seemed black at first. Its air-conditioned temperature came as a relief. Once their eyes adjusted to the indoor murk, they could see that the produce wasn’t shelved. It was just piled high on pallets you had to climb up onto to pull things down. Some of the ‘Special Offer’ signs hanging from the ceiling were in a language neither of them recognized or could decipher. All the food came in wrapping that looked off-colour, in brand names that sounded fractionally to one side of what you would expect. The sun-loungers were flat-packed, down at the end. She got a trolley, squeezed two of the loungers into it, and phoned for a minicab. They sheltered in the porch, until someone shouted, ‘Martina,’ from out there in the glare. She gave him a ten, though the fare was nowhere near that, and said not to bother about the change. He asked her, ‘Are you not the lassie who went walkabout?’
    â€˜Who went . . .?’
    â€˜Walkabout.’
    â€˜Walkabout?’ The girl started giggling and Martina had to nudge her several times across the back seat. The driver must have read about Helen in the paper. ‘Am I not the lassie who went walkabout? I am of course! Just over here, thanks. We’ll go walkabout from here.’
    â€˜You’re welcome back.’ He winked into the rear-view mirror, as if he was equally in on the joke.
    â€˜You’re very good,’ she said.
    The driver insisted on hauling the boxes from the boot. He gave her the card of his minicab firm.
    â€˜Ask for Dermie, and Dermie’ll be there in a jiffy.’
    â€˜Let me guess. You wouldn’t be Dermie by any chance?’
    â€˜No flies on you!’
    Dermie was five nothing, a navy anorak fading at the elbows that smelt of the inside of his cab. He asked if the girls would manage to assemble the sun-loungers. Martina had to apologize for her niece. ‘Something else,’ she said. ‘Private joke. You’re as good.’
    Dermie shouted up to them, from the driver’s door, ‘I’d kill to see you stretched out on one of those.’ He was gesturing at the boxes. He meant the sun-loungers. He meant Martina. She waved and muttered that his name sounded like a skin disease.
    She went topless. They had always gone topless before. Everyone did. Paul was at work all day, the girl accepted her going topless as second nature, and it wasn’t as if there were many neighbours to scandalize. She had a bright silk scarf that she knotted across herself as a bikini top in case there was the stir of someone else around or Flood rang the doorbell, which he hadn’t done in a while. Marcus didn’t get there until six. They had the place to themselves all afternoon. The girl could be nervous. More than once she was convinced that she saw something flitting between the fences that partitioned the rear gardens. How could she not be nervous, after everything that had happened? Martina, as was always her way, made light