Free Fly in the Ointment by Anne Fine Page B

who’d been present. ‘Her? She was a drug nark, I thought. Dressed like one, anyway. And that one sitting right in front of you was one of Janie Gay’s cast-offs, back for some more.’ Scrambling to his feet, he inspected his watch. ‘Stopping off for a drink?’
    â€˜At Janie Gay’s? Why not?’
    â€˜Know the way?’
    â€˜I’ll follow you.’
    â€˜I’m on the bike over there.’
    â€˜Don’t lose me in that warren. I’ll never find my way out.’
    And they were off, crunching in different directions across the gravel. I felt a surge of relief that I’d escaped without being recognized and in an instant it had turned to rage that, even now, leaving my own son’s funeral, my father was still uppermost in my mind. I forced myself to think of Malachy. What had his life been like over the last couple of years? By the time he died, had he and this peculiarly changeable Janie Gay – domineering girlfriend, vituperative citizen, vulnerable widow – managed tobuild a shared life – been happy, even? Maybe out there in Forth Hill – or, God forbid, Danbury – they’d managed to put together a halfway decent home, ready for their new baby. What was it like? Somewhere in one of those endless interlocking streets rife with infuriating cul-de-sacs to thwart the novice visitor, had Malachy been able to step out of his own little house into a garden? Or had the two of them ended up in one of those grim tower blocks the council had thrown up around the edges, where tenants had to stumble down flight after flight of stinking communal stairs to emerge in some litter-strewn yard? When Malachy looked out each morning, what had he seen? The shadow of some other ugly building looming over him, or a green waving tree? And had the sun reached down enough for him to hang in the window the only thing he’d ever bothered to take away with him from our old home: that tiny multi-faceted glass ball he’d loved so much through childhood, which caught the light and tossed its rainbow dots all round the room – bright splatterings of colour that in the last few years we were together it had exasperated me so much to watch him set dancing with a touch, over and over.
    I’d never know.
    Unless—
    Not even offering myself the chance to change mymind, I stepped back into the chapel. Already an usher was passing between the pews, skilfully gathering up the battered old pamphlets from Malachy’s bog-standard service with one hand while slapping down specially printed sheets for the next with the other.
    I tugged off the wig and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to unflatten it. I almost ran to my car. Parking it close to the gates had given me so much of a head start that by the time the huge black motorbike roared past, I was already in gear. In other circumstances they might have noticed that the same small blue car was right behind them all the way. But I suppose a part of their attention was on the leading and the following. In any case, what were they going to think? Some woman driving in the same direction. What’s special about that? I didn’t even take the risk of keeping back too far, or trying not to turn a corner till they were round the next. Each time I spotted a street sign I muttered the name of it under my breath until I saw the next. I never really thought I’d get to follow them the whole way to the house. But, almost without warning, the car ahead of me slewed to the kerb behind the motorbike while I sailed past, glancing from left to right in a desperate hunt for some house name or number.
    One hundred and forty-two, or thereabouts. Andstill in Forth Hill, thank God. We hadn’t gone as far as Danbury. I slowed the car to a crawl until I’d spotted in the rear-view mirror which gate they pushed. Then I drove on, checking the street name once again at the next corner, then pulling to the side myself