“And somehow the cloth lit, and was burning. I had to drop everything and take the pan there, where I had water for the potatoes.”
Meara picked up the potatoes while her mother wrung her hands, dumped the lot in the sink to deal with later.
“It’s a ruin, Meara, a ruin! What will I do? What will I do?”
The familiar mix of annoyance, resignation, frustration wound through her. Accepting that as her lot, Meara dried her hands by swiping them on her work pants.
“The first thing is to open the windows in the front room while I mop this up.”
“The smoke will soil the paint, won’t it, Meara, and you see the floor there, it’s scorched from the burning cloth. I don’t dare tell the landlord or he’ll set me out.”
“He’ll do nothing of the kind, Ma. If the paint’s soiled, we’ll fix it. If the floor’s damaged, we’ll fix that as well. Open the windows, then put some of Branna’s salve on your fingers.”
But Colleen only stood, hands clasped, pretty blue eyes damp. “Donal and his girl are coming at seven.”
“One thing at a time, Ma,” Meara said as she mopped.
“I couldn’t ring him up to tell him of the disaster here. Not while he’s at work.”
But you could ring me, Meara thought, as you’ve never understood a woman can work, does work, wants or needs to work, the same as a man.
“The windows,” was all she said.
Not a mean bone in her body, Meara reminded herself as she cleaned the floor—not scorched at all, but only smudged with ash from the cloth. Not even selfish in the usual way, but simply helpless and dependent.
And was that her fault, really, when she’d been tended and sheltered the whole of her life? By her parents, then by her husband, and now by her children.
She’d never been taught to cope, had she? Or, Meara thought with a hard stare at the roasting pan, how to cook a fecking joint.
After wringing out the mop, she took a moment to text Boyle. No point in keeping him worried.
Not a fire but a burnt joint of lamb and a right mess. No harm.
Meara carted out the ruined meat to dump in the bin, scrubbed off the potatoes and set them to dry—as they were still raw because her mother had forgotten, all to the good, to turn the heat on under them.
She set the roasting pan in the sink to soak, put the kettle on for tea, all while Colleen despaired of being evicted.
“Sit down, Ma.”
“I can’t sit, I’m that upset.”
“Sit. You’ll have some tea.”
“But Donal. What will I do? I’ve ruined the kitchen, and they’re coming for dinner. And the landlord, this will put him in a state for certain.”
Meara did multiplication tables in her head—the sevens, which buggered her every time. It kept her from shouting when she turned to her mother. “First, look around now. The kitchen’s not ruined, is it?”
“But I . . .” As if seeing it for the first time, Colleen fluttered around. “Oh, it cleaned up well, didn’t it?”
“It did, yes.”
“I can still smell the smoke.”
?
??You’ll keep the windows open a bit longer, and you won’t. At the worst, we’ll scrub down the walls.” Meara made the tea, added a couple of chocolate biscuits to one of her mother’s fancy plates—and because it was her mother, added a white linen napkin.
“Sit down, have your tea. Let’s have a look at your fingers.”