Me: Seances?

Tiffy: Yeah, you know, when you sit around a table and try to talk to dead people?

Waiter appears at Tiffy’s foot’s chair. Looks at it, mildly puzzled, but doesn’t comment. You get the impression they’re used to all sorts here, including bedraggled people with their feet up as they eat.

Waiter: Would you like a pudding?

Tiffy: Oh, no, I’m stuffed, thanks.

Waiter: Babs says it’s on the house.

Tiffy, without pause: Sticky toffee pudding, please.

Me: Same here.

Tiffy: All this free stuff. It’s like a dream come true. I should drown more often.

Me: Please don’t.

She lifts her head to look at me properly, her eyes a little sleepy, and holds my gaze for a few seconds longer than is strictly necessary.

Clear throat. Swallow. Flounder for subject.

Me: Your mum did seances?

Tiffy: Oh, yeah. So for a couple of years while I was at secondary school I’d come home to find all the curtains drawn and a bunch of people saying, ‘Please make yourself known’, and ‘Knock once for yes, twice for no’. I reckon at least sixty per cent of the visitations were actually just me getting home and chucking my bag in the cupboard under the stairs.

Me: So what was after seances?

Tiffy thinks about it. Sticky toffee pudding arrives; it’s enormous and drenched in toffee sauce. Tiffy makes an excited noise which makes my stomach clench. Ridiculous. Can’t be getting turned on by a woman moaning about pudding. Must pull self together. Sip more whisky.

Tiffy, mouth full of pudding: She made curtains for a bit. But the upfront costs were massive, so that turned into making doilies. And then it was aromatherapy.

Me: Is that why we have so many scented candles?

Tiffy smiles.

Tiffy: Yeah – the ones in the bathroom are all carefully chosen with scents that help you relax.

Me: They have the opposite effect on me. Have to move them every time I want to shower.

Tiffy gives me a cheeky look over her spoon.

Tiffy: Some people are beyond aromatherapeutic help. You know, my mum chose my perfume too. It ‘reflects and enhances my personality’, apparently.

I think of that first day when I walked into the flat and smelled her perfume – cut flowers and spice markets – and how odd it felt, having someone else’s scent in my flat. It’s never strange now. Would be odd to come home to anything else.

Me: What’s that then?

Tiffy, promptly: Top note rose, then musk, then clove. Which means, according to my mum . . .

Crinkles her nose a little in thought.

Tiffy: ‘Hope, fire, strength.’

Looks amused.

Tiffy: That’s me, apparently.

Me: Sounds about right.

She rolls her eyes at that, having none of it.

Tiffy: ‘Skint, mouthy, stubborn’ would be better – probably what she meant anyway.

Me, definitely tipsy now: What would I be, then?

Tiffy tilts her head. She looks right at me again, with an intensity that makes me half want to look away, half want to lean across the table and kiss her over the candle teapot.

Tiffy: Well there’s hope in there, definitely. Your brother’s relying on it.

That catches me by surprise. There are so few people who really know about Richie; even fewer who’ll bring him up unprompted. She’s watching me, testing for my reaction, like she’ll pull away if it hurts. I smile. Feels good to talk about him like this. Like it’s normal.

Me: So I get rose smell in my aftershave?

Tiffy makes a face.

Tiffy: There’s probably a whole different set of smells if you’re a man. I am only versed in the art of perfumery for women, I’m afraid.

I want to push her for the other words – want to hear what she thinks of me – but it’s conceited to ask. So we sit in silence instead, candle flame darting back and forth between us in its teapot, and I sip more whisky.

43

   Tiffy

I’m not drunk, but I’m not exactly sober, either. People always say swimming in the sea makes you hungry – well, nearly drowning in it makes you a lightweight.

Plus, whisky on the rocks is really very strong.

I can’t stop giggling. Leon is definitely tipsy too; he’s loosened up at the shoulders, and that lopsided smile is almost a permanent fixture now. Plus he’s stopped trying to smooth his hair down, so every so often a new curl breaks free and bobs up to stick out sideways.

He’s telling me about when he was a kid, living in Cork, and the elaborate man-traps he and Richie would come up with to piss off their mum’s boyfriend (which is why I’m giggling).

‘So, hang on, you’d string wire across the hall? Didn’t everyone else trip up too?’

Leon shakes his head. ‘We’d sneak out and set up after Mam had put us to bed. Whizz always stayed late at the pub. It was a real education in swearwords, hearing him trip over.’

I laugh. ‘His name was Whizz?’

‘Mmhmm. Though, I would guess, not by birth.’ His expression sobers. ‘He was one of the worst for Mam, actually. Awful to her, always telling her how stupid she was. And yet she always stuck with him. Always let him back in every time she kicked him out. She was doing this adult learning course when they got together, but he soon had her dropping out.’

I scowl. The man-trap story suddenly isn’t so funny any more. ‘Seriously? What an absolute fucking prick!’

Leon looks a little startled.

‘Did I say the wrong thing?’ I ask.

‘No.’ He smiles. ‘No, just surprising. Again. You’d give Whizz a run for his money in a swearing contest.’

I incline my head. ‘Why, thank you,’ I say. ‘What about your and Richie’s dad? Was he not in the picture?’

Leon is almost as horizontal as I am now – he’s sharing my foot chair, his feet crossed at the ankles – and he’s dangling his whisky glass between his fingers, spinning it back and forth in the candle­light. There’s hardly anyone else left here; the waiting staff are discreetly clearing tables over on the other side of the room.

‘He left when Richie was born, moved to the US. I was two. I don’t remember him, or . . . just the odd shape and sort of . . .’ He waves a hand. ‘The odd feeling. Mam almost never talks about him – all I know is he was a plumber from Dublin.’