Free Eager to Please by Julie Parsons Page B

with the gun in her hands. And said, ‘You stupid bitch, what do you think you’re doing with that? You couldn’t shoot me to save your
life. Not you, a liar and a cheat and a coward. Come on, tell me. Who was it? Spit it out. I’ve a right to know. After all these years of playing daddy to a kid who isn’t mine. Tell
me.’
    So she told him. Blurted it out. Thinking that somehow it would be better that it wasn’t just anyone. That it was someone who he knew. Thinking that he might feel he could forgive her. He
could accept what had happened. That it might be all right again. The way things used to be. But she had forgotten. For some reason she could never understand, she had forgotten the way he felt
about Daniel.
    ‘That bastard who calls himself my brother. You and him, together. Where? Here in this house? Here in my bed, in my room? Here, under this roof? My roof? You and him? Of all people. How
could you? If I had known that he had touched you, you know, don’t you, that I would never have touched you again. Ever. You know, don’t you, that he’s literally a bastard,
don’t you? My mother told me about his mother. A fifteen-year-old somewhere in the sticks who got into trouble. But we know nothing about his father. Some lucky bollocks who had a bit of fun,
then buggered off before he had to face the consequences. Just what I should have done with you, Rachel. I don’t know what I was thinking about, marrying you. I must have been
crazy.’
    He reached out and took hold of the barrel of the gun, pulling it towards himself, pulling her with it.
    ‘Here, let me give you a hand. Let me show you what to do with this. What I would do with this.’
    They moved together, out of the kitchen, along the passage to the small room at the front of the house. His room, where he kept his books and his papers, his private possessions as he always
said.
    ‘Here.’ He pulled open the top drawer of the desk. He took out a box of cartridges. He opened it. He jerked the gun from her grasp. He broke it open, pushed the cartridges into the
chamber. He snapped it shut. He held it out to her.
    ‘Here.’ He smiled at her. ‘Now, that’s what I call a weapon.’
    The cars were rushing past her now as she stood at the junction of Merrion Square and Clare Street. She tried to judge their distance but it was hopeless. For twelve years she
had never looked further than the walls of the prison yard. Nothing within their confines moved at a speed that wasn’t human. How to know how far a moving object was from her, how to
determine its relative speed? She put one foot on to the road, then hesitated. Lurched forward, drew back. Remembered the sound of the car as it had hit Amy. And the elderly man who was driving,
who had wept as he saw the child on the ground and kept on saying, over and over again, ‘She just ran out in front of me, there was nothing I could do.’
    Now Rachel hung back, waiting. There must be something wrong with the lights. They didn’t change. All around her other pedestrians passed her out, passed her by. Occasionally someone would
look back at her, curiously. She wanted to reach out and tug at a sleeve, a coat, ask for help. It was getting late. Amy would be walking down Leeson Street to school, any minute now. She had to
make a move or else she’d miss her. And then she’d have to wait until she came out at lunchtime.
    Tears dripped down her cheeks. She twisted and turned. How stupid she must look, she thought. A mad woman with grey hair and a grey face, making a fool of herself in a busy city street. The cars
streamed past, then slowed and stopped. A buzzer sounded, a high-pitched shriek. The green man flashed up. She took a deep breath and ran, dodging through the traffic. She kept on running, holding
her denim jacket, hearing her keys jangling together in her pocket. The laces from her runners flopped from side to side. She stared at her feet as she ran and saw shoes of all shapes and