and charm. Unfailingly polite, he still managed to let Johnny know he loathed him.
Johnny had wanted to hire another cheery, chatty Filipina, like lovely Beth, the previous incumbent. But Jessie had set her heart on McGurk. ‘It’ll be good for the girls to see a man in a servile position.’
‘I’m under the cosh,’ Johnny had said, ‘and they see me every day of their lives.’
To add to Johnny’s irritation Ferdia, lanky and dishevelled, was lounging against a counter, eating Sugar Puffs from a big Pyrex bowl. He really did treat this place like a free hotel, Johnny observed. Living it up in his little cottage at the bottom of the garden, as if it were a suburban Chateau Marmont, then popping in and out of here to eat their food and collect his laundry.
‘We’ll set up the trestle table here.’ McGurk was pointing with his pen.
‘Not by the kitchen?’ Jessie sounded surprised.
‘No. Positioning it here will keep the flow going.’
Jessie nodded meekly. Well! That didn’t happen often.
Somehow Johnny caught Ferdia’s eye and Ferdia said, ‘So terrified of her own ordinariness she has to surround herself with weirdos.’
Johnny chuckled, then abruptly remembered who he was talking to and snapped, ‘Don’t say that about your mother.’
‘Speaking of weirdos,’ Ferdia said, ‘I wonder what Nell will be wearing today.’
He was a fine one to talk, Johnny thought, him and his Girl Power T-shirt.
‘Whatnow? No.’ Ferdia addressed Jessie as if she were a simpleton. ‘Her clothes are just plain mad.’
‘Because all her stuff is from charity shops. She doesn’t buy new clothes because of the planet. Or is it something to do with not “feeding capitalism”? Whatever it is, she still looks amazing.’
TJ jingled car keys at Johnny. ‘Come on, you useless arse.’ She headed for the door, Camilla and Bubs scampering after her. ‘Someone hold the dogs!’ she yelled. ‘They’re trying to get out.’
Saoirse grabbed them by their collars as they strained to escape the house.
Outside, a DHL van had pulled up. ‘Howya, Johnny,’ Steve, the delivery man, called.
See, Steve called him Johnny. Why couldn’t McGurk?
‘Howya, Steve,’ TJ said.
‘Howya, TJ.’
Although should Johnny be worried that the entire family seemed to be on first-name terms with their DHL man?
‘Delivery for Jessie.’
‘I’ll take it.’
Johnny looked at the sender – Net-a-Porter! What the feck? Then he remembered the shoes she’d ordered for Jin Woo Park’s wife.
‘Who’s coming today?’ Ferdia asked Jessie.
‘Ed and Cara, Liam and Nell. Some of the neighbours and a few friends. Twenty-five. Maybe thirty.’
‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered.
‘Ah, don’t be cross.’ She wrapped her arms around his waist. ‘You’re only annoyed because we’ll be out in the garden, disturbing you in your little flat.’
‘You’re a hypocrite.’ He disengaged himself. ‘When did you last go to Mass?’
‘You pick your battles.’ Jessie was breezy. ‘Everyone else in her class is doing it.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to take her around the neighbours and shake them down for cash?’
‘That’s the custom. We did it for you.’
‘We weren’t so rich then.’
We aren’t so rich now …
For a moment, a teeny-tiny moment, she’d pretend the shoes were for her. She’d carefully open the lovely Balenciaga box, peep inside and pretend.
And, oh, God, look at them! The leather, the lustrous soft white leather. They were so beautiful.
Slipping them on for a second would do no harm, as long as she stayed on the carpet. She gazed in the mirror, at the perfect little heel, the fashion-forward pointy toe. The longer she looked, the more she wanted them.
Why can’t I have something nice?
She worked hard. Yesterday she’d done a fifteen-hour day – she’d gone to Kilkenny and taken the staff out for morale-boosting drinks and pizzas. It was gone eleven when she’d got home.
These shoes were a size too big for her. But because they were slides, she could get away with it …
With sudden resolve, she made her decision. Feck it, she was keeping them!
‘Mum!’ Saoirse called up the stairs. ‘Cara’s here.’
Instantly Jessie was awash with guilt. Cara had come to do their monthly accounts: she was sure to find out about Jessie appropriating Océane’s shoes. Maybe she could just lie about it … Mostly she didn’t mind Cara knowing what she bought. What she couldn’t handle was poor Cara’s pep-talks, as she tried to help Jessie and Johnny live within their means.
But they did live within their means. Apart from the one-off expenditures that distorted the bottom line – of which today was a prime example. It wasn’t every year that a child made their