Free This Is How It Ends by Kathleen MacMahon Page B

always makes you feel like dancing. The one that makes you forget all your troubles and makes you want to live. You stand there in the door and you don’t know what to do. Do you stay or do you go?
    That’s where Addie was when she met Bruno.

Chapter 8
    S HE WAS WOKEN by an almighty racket, a ferocious banging on the door. It was more like a pummeling, an irregular drumming. She had a fair idea who it was.
    She looked over at Bruno but he’d already pulled the duvet up and over his head and he was burrowing down under it. It was dark in the bedroom, with the curtains drawn. Impossible to tell what time it was. Addie laid her head back down on the pillow, closed her eyes, and hoped they’d go away. But of course they didn’t.
    More banging. Little fists thumping, the hollow sound of a small pudgy palm slapping the door. She rolled over the edge of the bed and sat there for a minute trying to get her bearings before she grabbed her dressing gown and staggered out through the living room to the front hall. She opened the door just a chink, keeping her body behind it as she placed her face in the open crack.
    “How did I guess it was you lot?”
    They were all jumping up and down. They made a dizzying sight this early in the morning, all blinding pink and frenetic activity.
    “We got a fish, we got a fish.”
    Stella was the one holding the bowl. She was squealing at the others. “ Stop , you’re going to spill it. If you spill it, I’ll kill you.
    “He wants to meet Lola,” she said. “Can we introduce him to Lola?”
    “Lola will eat him,” said Elsa drily, her little voice husky.
    “We’re going to call him Lola.”
    “No, we are not !” cried Stella. “He’s my fish and I’m going to name him.”
    “We don’t even know if he’s a boy or a girl.”
    “Guys. Your fish is lovely, but you can’t come in,” said Addie. “It’s too early. I’m not dressed.”
    They just stood there looking at her with their small bewildered faces. When they heard their mother coming up behind them, they all turned round.
    “Hi, Ad,” said Della, sweeping down the steps, car keys still in her hand, her coattails trailing after her.
    “Hi, Dell,” said Addie.
    “What’s up?”
    Addie answered in a slow whisper, spitting the words out carefully so she wouldn’t have to repeat them. “I had a sleepover last night.”
    O. Della’s mouth made a perfect circle and she responded in the same stilted tone. “OK, girls. Auntie Addie had a sleepover last night.”
    “That’s right,” said Addie, echoing her words and nodding. “A sleepover.”
    “O-K,” said Della. “What we’re going to do, ladies, is we’re going to take the fish upstairs and we’ll introduce him to your grandfather. Lola can meet the fish another time.”
    Addie watched through the crack in the door as Imelda herded them all back up the steps. When she got to the top she turned round and did a little mime act, sweeping her fingers under her eyes.
    As soon as they were out of sight Addie shut the door softly and padded into the bathroom. Sure enough she had panda eyes, dry riverbeds of mascara streaking her face as far down as her cheekbones. As quietly as she could, she opened the tap up to a trickle of water. With a wet cotton pad, she swept the sludge away. Brushed her teeth and swished some mouthwash around her gums. She straightened her eyebrows with her wet toothbrush.
    When she came back into the bedroom, she had the strangest feeling that she was seeing it for the first time. She took in the grubby paintwork on the walls and the flimsy old green curtains on the high basement window. Unlined curtains, they’d been hand-hemmed at the bottom, a loose tacking stitch that broke through to the other side, dimpling the fabric all the way along. Those curtains had been up in Della’s bedroom once upon a time. But they’d ended up down here, along with everything else that wasn’t wanted.
    The armchair in the corner, the