Chapter 1
It’s 2:50 a.m., and I’m lying here tossing and turning. The kids will be in on top of me in a few hours, and I’ll be kicking myself for wasting so much precious sleep obsessing about Detective Sergeant Donal Cassidy. I try to focus on what I’ve learned at the meditation class in the community hall: breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four.
Nope, not relaxing. It’s easy when Paminandra (real name Maura) does it and we’re all half asleep on the community hall carpet tiles, but implementing it in my own life seems to be beyond me.
Beside me, Kieran is peaceful. I glance over. He’s fifty-three and grey at the temples now, but I think he’s still handsome. Kieran doesn’t have trouble sleeping; he falls asleep in one position and stays that way till he wakes. You could draw around his body in chalk like he was a corpse – you know the way they do on TV? – and there he’d be in the morning in exactly the same position. He wouldn’t shift if the house fell down around his ears. I remember once him telling his sister Orla that when our girls were babies, neither of them ever woke in the night. Orla threw me that conspiratorial look of mothers. What he meant is he never woke.
Not that I’m complaining about him. He’s a lovely husband and a great dad. Kieran works hard. He’s a roofer and has his own company based here in Ballycarrick, started from nothing, fair play to him. He is exhausted when he comes home every night. It’s a very physical job, so he never has trouble sleeping. Still, I work hard too. But I’m not pulling heavy roof slates around, I suppose. And now I’m looking at the ceiling for the sixth night in a row.
My name is Mags, by the way, short for Margaret. And now I suppose you’d want a look at me. If I were going to waste my time listening to someone’s ramblings, I’d want to know what they look like, so here goes. Well, I won’t say what I look like right now, at three in the morning, that would frighten the dogs, but normally I’m, well, normal looking.
I’m forty-eight. I have blueish eyes, kind of bluey-grey, I suppose, and I’m five foot seven. If I were in crime watch reconstruction, they’d find a middle-aged woman of average height and build with brown hair in a bob and blue eyes. So that’s me, Mrs Ordinary.
Oh, and I’m a guard, which is what they call police officers in Ireland. Now, before you start visualising those gritty Netflix cops, fighting crime and gunning down drug barons or finding serial killers. I’m nothing like that. I’m a uniformed sergeant and run the tiny local Garda station in Ballycarrick, and my area of law enforcement involves, on the downside side, mostly dog licences, drunk and disorderly conduct, domestics and petty theft, and, on the upside, community policing, helping the people where we live to feel safe and secure, and encouraging young people to become responsible citizens. I love it. Well, not the drunk and disorderly stuff, but I like being the person who makes people relax when things go wrong. People in Ballycarrick trust me, and they know that I’ll do my best for them, even the ones who flout the law a bit. We have the community awards coming up on Friday night, and it’s always a great night. The people of Ballycarrick nominate those who have given great service to the community, and the Gardai run it and provide the funding. This year, the Transition Year class in the secondary school are getting an award for teaching the active retirement group how to use social media, Eileen Desmond is being recognised for fifty years running Meals on Wheels, and one of the McGoverns is getting a special award for a project on Traveller life she and her cousins did that is being displayed in the library. They never make Netflix shows about that, and who could blame them, but that’s what being a guard means to me.
That’s what keeps me going while I lie awake at night worrying about what happened last week when I applied for the job of detective sergeant.
There I am, standing at reception in the brand-new steel and plate-glass Garda station in Galway, waiting for the young woman behind the counter to check where I need to go for my interview, when Sergeant Donal Cassidy – or Duckie, as the lads call him behind his back – appears beside me. Now generally guards, and detectives even, are decent people, but this one is a charmless misogynist of the highest order.
‘Good morning, Sergeant Cassidy,’ I say.
He looks me up and down – I’m in a suit and he’s used to seeing me in uniform – and grunts a greeting, then he starts chatting up the young female guard on the public desk with as much finesse as a bull in a china shop. I sigh inwardly. The deluded eejit is fifty years old, paunchy, with halitosis and dodgy hair, and the young guard is half his age, blonde and very pretty. Do men like him really think they have a shot? I decide they must.
The young woman smiles politely at Duckie, then tells both of us that the interview will take place on the first floor and we can take a seat in the corridor upstairs. It is the first time I even realise Duckie has applied for the same job, but I’m not surprised. He is a sergeant down the road in Dromanane, population eight hundred, which is about one tenth the size of Ballycarrick, but he has always fancied himself as a master sleuth and a man of influence. In real life, he is as thick as a ditch and he’s only in the force because his father was a guard before him and his grandfather before that. Also, it helped that his uncle was Minister for Transport – at least he was until he was discovered to be worthy of the Nobel Prize for fiction when it came to his expense account. I know I sound like a right narky old bat – I promise I’m not; I like most people – but honestly, if you met this fella, you’d feel the same, I guarantee it.
On the first floor, two younger male guards are already waiting; they smile hello and we all sit down on the plastic chairs. I’m feeling sweaty and itchy and nervous. I hope the sweat isn’t coming out through my shirt. It’s hot, but I’m always hot these days. I’ll have to keep my jacket on, just in case. For the first time, I think, Maybe it’s the change. My friend Sharon is always going on about her hot flushes and mood swings and insomnia and the rest of it, but surely I’m not that old yet.
Duckie’s voice booms. He finds himself hilarious, though why is anyone’s guess. His overpowering cologne stinks up the corridor, and his suspiciously dark hair is bordering on plum coloured and swept unconvincingly over his bald patch. His small eyes, set a fraction too close together, bulge with mirth almost as much as his belly, which is straining at the buttons of his shirt. A fold of fat rests on his too-tight collar.
‘Wait till I tell you this one,’ says Duckie. ‘A fella applies to go to Templemore Garda College, and in the interview the inspector says, “I need you to shoot six knackers and a rabbit.”’
His use of the word ‘knacker’ annoys me. I will not allow it in my station, and I have a right go at Kieran if he says it in the house, especially in front of the girls. It’s a horrible word to describe Irish Travellers, who live in caravans on halting sites, spaces which are provided by the local county council for Travellers to park their vans in a big circle with a communal water supply and rubbish collection.
The lads glance at one another, clearly mortified. But he outranks them and they are about to go in for an interview, so they don’t want a scene.
Undeterred by the lack of enthusiasm in his audience, Duckie puffs himself up and his voice booms even more loudly. The new recruit asks, ‘Why the rabbit?’ A pause for the punchline, then Duckie continues. ‘Great attitude! says the inspector. “You’re in.’
The two young lads grimace awkwardly out of respect for Duckie being a sergeant.
‘That’s not funny, Sergeant Cassidy,’ I hear myself saying very loudly. ‘In fact, it’s disgusting.’
Duckie turns and looks me up and down. ‘Yerra, Mags, it’s only a joke. Lighten up,’ he says, with such condescension in his voice, I want to punch him. The two younger lads suddenly find the carpet beneath their feet fascinating, and three older plain-clothes guys who are walking by stop and look at me before disappearing through a door into a large office.
It’s not until my name is called that I realise the plain-clothes guys are the interview panel.
I’m hoping my getting thick with a fellow sergeant in front of younger guards won’t make any difference to my chances. I’ve studied hard for this interview and don’t want to blow it over something stupid.
The next day, I get an email thanking me for applying for the job, telling me how it has been a difficult decision but that Sergeant Cassidy did an excellent interview on the day.
Kieran can’t understand at all why I’m so disappointed. I think he thought it was stupid to go for it anyway, not that he’d ever say that. He knows I love my job; it’s nine-to-five, the money’s good, and it’s down the road.
In a way, he’s right. Detective sergeant is a plain-clothes job, and an ordinary sergeant wears uniform. And there’s no difference in rank or base salary, although the detectives do get an extra allowance. But at the same time, everyone thinks detective sergeants are a cut above uniformed sergeants. So now Duckie is officially smarter than me. And he’ll never let me forget it. If I’m honest, that’s why I’m so annoyed. If one of the young lads waiting had got it, I wouldn’t feel so bad.
Oh, to hell with Duckie.
I try again to go to sleep. Kieran throws his heavy arm over me, and instead of rolling away like I usually do because I’m afraid his hand will land on my flabby tummy, I snuggle into him, and next thing I know…
Chapter 2
The alarm goes off, and it feels like I’ve been asleep for ten minutes.
‘Mam.’ Ellie shakes me awake. ‘I need twenty-five shells.’
‘Wha…?’ I am struggling to wake up. It’s seven in the morning, and Kieran is no longer in the bed. Ellie is in her Harry Potter pyjamas, and her curly brown hair is like a bird’s nest. Brushing Ellie’s hair is the bane of her life and mine. Often we just bunch it in a ponytail and hope for the best.
‘What kind of shells?’ I ask.
My twelve-year-old daughter exhales impatiently. ‘The ones off the beach?’ She’s doing that Australian upward inflection. All the kids do it now. Fine for Australians, it’s their accent, but it grates on my nerves coming out of a child from Galway.
‘Ellie, that accent is like totes annoying?’ I reply, mimicking her.
‘Urgh…you’re so embarrassing,’ she complains in her normal voice, and I chuckle.
‘Totes morto,’ I riposte.
She giggles and pulls the duvet off me. ‘Come on, Mam! I have to get them, and they have to be pearlescent Miss Cullinane said.’
‘What?’ I sit on the side of the bed.
‘Y’know, kind of shiny?’ Ellie is losing patience now.
‘But the house is already full of shells,’ I say. Of course it is – we live fifteen minutes from the beach and we have two children. The windowsills are falling down with shells, and also stones that looked great when they were shiny and wet but are now a dull dry grey. Surely we have some pearlescent ones?
‘No, it’s for an art project. They have to be white or yellow shells, and shiny, and I need them, and I told Miss Cullinane I got them at the weekend so I can’t say I forgot. I need to go down to the beach now and get shells, so come on, get up.’
My sergeant’s uniform is hanging, ready to be worn, but I’m not going in until nine thirty so I pull on the tracksuit pants I wore out walking last night and Kieran’s GAA hoodie.
‘What about Kate?’ I ask. ‘Have you got her up yet?’
‘I tried but she’s refusing to wake. It’s grand for her – she has Miss O’Driscoll, who gives them sweets and sends them cards on their birthday, not fire-breathing Cullinane who is petrifying!’ Ellie wails as she storms off.
The next thing I hear is Kate begging her older sister to leave her alone. I try to find a pair of matching socks and fail; I pull on one grey one and one black as I hunt under the bed for my runners.
My youngest appears in unicorn pyjamas, her blonde silky hair flopping over her forehead. She is the cutest thing, honestly. Small for nine years old but not worryingly so.
‘Ellie dragged me out of bed and took my duvet,’ she moans, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
‘I know, pet, she’s a demon,’ I whisper to her, kissing the top of her head. ‘But we have to get white and yellow shells or Miss Cullinane will have a hairy canary.’ She giggles; I love that I can always make her laugh. ‘We’ll have Coco Pops when we get back, but run and get dressed now.’
‘Is Dad gone already?’ she asks, seeing the dent in the bed after Kieran.
‘He is. He has to get that place out on the Castletown road roofed before the rain that’s forecast, so he was gone at the dawn.’ I give her a quick squeeze. Ellie and Kate love their dad.
‘I thought he came in to give me a kiss, but I didn’t know if it was a dream.’
***
So here I am, twenty-five minutes later, standing on the edge of a glittering sea as my girls rummage around in the sand for the right coloured shells. Do primary-school teachers do it on purpose? Like, do they lie in their primary-coloured beds, with their colour-coordinated thoughts, and dream up inconvenient things for parents to find urgently? I smile at the thought. Maybe it’s what keeps them sane with all the wheels on the bus and finger painting. Whatever gets you through the day.
‘Have you enough?’ I ask hopefully as Ellie approaches.
‘I’ve only twenty-two and I need twenty-five,’ she replies, clearly beginning to panic.
Ellie feels about Miss Cullinane the way I felt about my fifth class teacher, Sister Patrick – sheer terror. The whole town can’t wait for her to retire. I don’t blame the child; I met the famous Miss Cullinane at the parent-teacher meeting, and she scared me. And I’m a guard for God’s sake. She’s what you’d call forbidding. If it were any one of the other teachers, I’d write Ellie a note, but not her.
Suddenly I’m eleven years old and in Sister Patrick’s class. I got eight out of ten on the spelling test. I was always good enough at spelling. Reading does that – you kind of learn it subliminally, and my nose was always stuck in a book. But she pulls me up to the top of the class to spell the two words I got wrong. Even at the time, I thought it was ridiculous. If I could spell them right ‘Wednesday’ and ‘sincerely’ – I still remember them all these years later, I would have done it right on the test, wouldn’t I? So the purpose of the exercise was humiliation. It worked too, of course it did. Even now I hate writing either of those words.
‘Don’t worry, pet, I’ll help you.’ I dig around in the cold, damp sand and eventually find three more pearlescent shells. Thank God. We can go home and get some breakfast.
It’s warmish and the sun is up, but there are rain clouds already drifting this way. I spare a thought for poor Kieran trying to get the roof on before the weather changes. He always says being a roofer in Ireland is the triumph of hope over experience, like second marriages. Luckily, he has three Polish guys with him, Wojtec, Jacek, and Marius, and they are great workers altogether, very fast. He’s lucky to have them. He gets a bit of stick from local fellas about only employing Poles, but he always says he employs men who’ll turn up on a Monday morning, work all day and leave the job neat and tidy at the end of the day. And the chances of getting that in a Polish worker are higher than in an Irish one unfortunately.
Back home, I shovel Coco Pops and toast into my girls and make packed lunches of roast chicken sandwiches, yoghurts, grapes and rice cakes. I drop them off to school at one minute to the bell.
I watch them as they walk in together, the school bags as big as themselves, happy, healthy and full of potential, and the job rejection seems insignificant. I’m so proud of them.
I go home and get myself ready for work. Up in the bedroom, fresh out of the shower, I see myself in the mirror – all soft belly and full breasts. I’m a bit overweight. Not massive or anything but definitely not skinny. Every so often I go to the slimming club in the hotel to get myself in order, but to be honest with you, the one who runs it, Elaine, wrecks my head, or maybe I’m just jealous of her skinny thighs. So I endure it for the few weeks, after Christmas, for instance, or before Ellie’s Communion to fit into the dress, but I can’t stick it for long.
You see, the trouble is I don’t love green juice or steamed fish and I do love Cadbury Fruit & Nut and red wine and chips. As I said, a few weeks is the best I can do. Then Elaine and her scales and her sympathetic face and I have to part company.
Sharon is forever warning me not to ‘let myself go’ and not to take Kieran for granted. Her husband, Danny, has gone off with Chloe Desmond from the chipper, and she’s young enough to be his daughter, so Sharon’s ultra-sensitive on the topic of husbands. She’s always saying what a fine man Kieran is and I’d want to watch him, that there are plenty of women willing to snap him up, but she doesn’t know Kieran. He’d never do that. Not to me, and not to the girls. He’s a straighty one-eighty.
I sit into the car and pick up the phone. After pausing for a second, I write a text.
Hope day going OK and you get roof done before rain. Will get lamb chops in Mahony’s for tea. See you later. x
Hardly a great love letter of our age, but it’s the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment. The bit about the lamb chops is a sign of love. I complain a bit about Kieran taking me for granted, letting me do all the shopping and cooking even though I work as hard as he does. Mind you, I suppose Sharon is right – I do take him for granted as well. I haven’t taken out a bin in fifteen years.
As I reverse out of the driveway, my phone pings. I glance at it.
Great, can’t wait. See you tonight. Love you. x
I’ll text him back when I get to the station. The local sergeant texting and driving is not exactly the message we’re trying to send.
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