Free Winterwood by Patrick McCabe Page B

waiting
     - at this very moment! — in a hotel we'd secretly chosen in Killiney Village. A sort of impromptu get-together, I'd intended
     to say. The more I thought about that approach, though, the less sure I felt that she'd be convinced. Catherine would probably,
     over-protectively, have instilled in her all sorts of latent anxieties. In the end I decided to dispense with that altogether
     and instead concentrate on the 'final meeting with daddy' scenario. I was going away to America for good, I'd tell her, and
     had just wanted to see her one last time. I went to the doctor and got some more sleeping pills. I was happier than I'd been
     in a long long time as I crushed some capsules into a saucer that day, whistling along Drumcondra Road with my couple of bottles
     of Ribena.
    —Ha, 'The Secret of Ribena!' I laughed, kind of giddily.
    I had established over a period of time that Ivan and Catherine did their week's shopping in Dundrum every Sunday afternoon.
     Imogen rarely accompanied them on these trips — why I didn't know but was soon to find out. It was as if everything was falling
     perfectly into place. At every turn I was being ably, if slyly and subtly, assisted, it seemed. For example, when I was going
     through the RTE Guide what did I discover? Only that on Sunday afternoons, RTE were showing reruns of My Little Pony I I was really startled when I came across that. But, of course, at the same time, it was lovely to know about it, for it made
     me feel confident that everything had been ordained to run smoothly and without incident.
    And that soon we'd be arriving at our own special place, which up to now had existed only in the mind and in the memory of
     a chiming, bright, revolving carousel.
    I knew in my heart that my precious angel would recognise me straight away, and that she'd probably be lost for words as soon
     as she saw what I'd brought as a present: Where the Wild Things Are, of course. Which did indeed prove to be the case. She started jumping up and down, to the extent that I actually had to take
     pains to calm her, sharing a few of our private little stories. Then I explained to her how I was going to America for 'quite
     a while', that I'd been given a job on the New York Times and was only back in Dublin for 'one special reason'. More than anything I wanted to get away from the estate but I couldn't
     afford to appear agitated. It was at that point I saw it, when she looked at me and smiled, and I knew then for sure that
     the hand of heaven was aiding and abetting me. There could be no mistaking the light that came into her eyes - almost imperceptible
     as it was. But there could be no mistaking that it had been there. I shivered in a private moment of acknowledgment and gratitude.
    —I'll get my bag, I heard her say, but only for a little while for mammy might give out - OK?
    I couldn't believe I was holding my daughter's hand. My heart beat with pride as she rested her head upon my shoulder.
    All I wanted was to ease anonymously out of Ballyroan Road and then get properly into our stories, maybe even Zippy out of Rainbow would get a mention. We were bound for winterwood, obviously - but I wasn't in a position to tell her that yet.
    Not, at least, until she'd had her Ribena.
    I had saved up to buy the car. Not that it cost much, a few hundred is all. Although, even for that money, I could have tried
     to get myself a better model than an Escort for it cut out not once but fucking twice on the motorway.
    For which reason, our journey to winterwood, you'd have to say, was both good and bad. Good and bad in equal measure. But,
     to be honest, mostly good, at least once we managed to get over our difficulties. Some aspects of which unsettle me even yet.
     For it turned out that she hadn't been watching My Little Pony at all — that was just for babies, she told me. What she'd, in fact, been watching was something called Sweet Valley High. I knew nothing about that and it made me feel