Free Lilac Bus by Maeve Binchy Page B

me, and the name of a solicitor who’d be able to find him, who’d pass letters on.’
    ‘And where does he think he’s going?’
    ‘To England. Where else?’
    ‘And how will he earn a living for himself and this floosie?’
    ‘She’s not a floosie – Eileen a floosie? Billy would earn a living on the planet Mars, don’t worry about that.’
    Mikey was struck dumb.
    ‘But the thing that upset him most was his father, your father.’
    ‘Billy never gives much time to poor old Dad.’
    ‘No, but he thought it wasn’t just for me to be left with him – to have to look after an old man who isn’t my own father. I said that Da was the least of the problems, what I wanted to know was how he could leave me, his wife, his friend for years and years, for fourteen years married, and a year before that mad about each other. That’s when he explained all this
In Love
business.’
    ‘What did you do?’
    ‘What could I do? His mind was made up, he was leaving. He had a list of things he wanted me to do. There was a special sum of money left in one envelope that was for me to have driving lessons. I was to find out who taught Mrs Casey: whoever taught her could teach the divil himself. He was leaving the van. I was to ask Bart Kennedy to give me a hand and pay him a proper wage, I was to decide whether he should write to the children or not and what I should tell them, if anything. He thought I should say he had gone away for a bit and then they’d grow used to it.’
    Mary stood up to get another bottle of stout.
    ‘He had been packing his things too, it nearly broke my heart to see his good shirts stuffed in all creased, and he had forgotten all his shoes. I asked him to say goodbye to your father – he’s been very clear the past couple of days, knows all of us – but no, he wouldn’t. I said he might never see him again and he said that he’d never see any of us again. That’s when I got a bit frightened about it all. I knew there’s never any changing his mind. So I decided I’d let him go, without screaming and roaring and begging.’
    ‘You let him walk out . . .’
    ‘No, I said I’d go out and let him finish at his ease. I said he needn’t bother about the letter now, he’d said it all, that I’d go out and get more flowers and things and keep out of his way for an hour or two until he left. That he could leave all the insurance papers where they could be found, and the solicitor who would pass on the messages to him if there was anything we hadn’t thought of. He was SO relieved: you should have seen his face – you see he was afraid there’d be this big scene. He said that maybe I’d be glad of the change too, and I said, oh no, I wouldn’t, I would miss him every day of the year and so would his children, and on the days when his father was clear his father would miss him too. I wasn’t going to give him the nice comfortable feeling that he was doing us any favours. And out I went. I crept along the back way and he finished his packing and his leaving things out on the table, and your one camealong in her car and he put the boxes and cases in and she kissed him just standing at our door and they drove off.
    ‘When I came in it was all in neat piles on the table and a piece of paper saying, “Thank you very much, Mary. All the best, Billy.” So now you know everything, everything that’s to be known.’
    ‘Isn’t he a callous bastard, isn’t he the biggest most selfish . . .’
    ‘That won’t bring him back.’
    ‘I’ll bring him back, I’ll get him back. He’s not going to desert you, there’s ways of bringing him back.’
    ‘Not if he doesn’t want to come back! Will you have your fish and chips now, they’ll go all hard otherwise?’
    He hardly slept all night; it was only when the dawn came that he fell off and it wasn’t long after that the twins were in the room followed by Gretta carrying a cup of tea. That was always their excuse to wake him: it was called