The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien Read Free Book Online Page B

measurements and yer man the dealer gets his ruler and measures and assures me that his wheels will fit my VW exactly. Deal done. Three hundred euros cash. Icome home, jack up the car, and the effing wheels are out by half a millimetre. I’m fucking psycho. Camilla says relax, relax, we’ll put them on Dundee. We’ll never fucking sell them on Dundee I tell her and she tells me to relax and she takes a picture and the measurements and she puts it on the site and in five minutes the wheels are sold for exactly the same price.’
Andre, the Polak, is next. He coughs a few times, apologises for his English and begins very seriously, ‘In my small town, they say Ireland good place, good wages. Homeless for one month when I arrive to Dublin. I go to one shelter and another and another, ask Can I please spend night here . Mattresses on floor, many men in one room. I keep one eye half open, for I fear I lose my flash lamp, my one possession. In morning, janitor hand out small dishes with cornflakes and we all go out search for work. Anything, anything. After two weeks I get job down in Limerick working with cows. Place very lonely. Only cows and shed where I sleep. I ring my mother and she say You won’t make it Andre … come back , but because she say that, I am determine to make it. Late one night I am called from agency that say Come tomorrow morning eight a.m. for interview to start in restaurant in Finglas. No trains so early. No bus. I set out in night and I start flagging when I get to main road. Walk. Walk. Walk. At petrol station woman in wellington boots ask me where I going. I tell her I have to be in Finglas before eight o’clock for interview for job. She tell man filling his car Bring this boy to Finglas and I get in and he give me coffee in cafeteria in O’Connell Street and afterward money to take taxi. One year there I save and now my friends I am here.’
Hedda is reluctant to tell a story, even though it is her turn. She tells them that her idol is Baudelaire, but he is dead and shecannot write poetry now, as she has no love in her life. She tells them that she cries a lot and that her only relaxing is cleaning her small apartment. Not lucky in love. It is why she has left the previous job and come here, to get away from Milos, to think. ‘It is like this,’ she says and then begins, a bit shyly, holding back the tears. ‘Milos and me, we work in the same dining room in County Waterford and get to know one another and find us falling in love. He go home on holiday for one month and I think when he coming back and I pray he don’t find another woman. I hug him when he appear. I make marzipan. Light candles. Marzipan cut up in slices and along with it, cheese and wine. He say, “Let’s go for a walk Hedda.” He very insistent. We go along by a river and he stop me and he say, “Don’t move.” Then he say, “Don’t jump in the river.” I am shaking like a little little girl. I say, “What is it.” He say, “Don’t ask,” then he go on his knees and take a small box from his pocket and snap it open and he say, “Marry me.” I am bewildered. One of me feeling “Stay” and one of me saying, “Run to the motorway Hedda.” So many different feelings. He put the ring on. In that moment almost husband and wife. For two months enjoying our feelings. Then we decide to have a holiday in the Caribbean and we start to fight. It is all about arrangements. I pick hotel and he say not enough palm trees. Next hotel he say, mould on the picture frame in the lobby. I throw my computer on the table and tell him do it. What he do then, he call his mother. She find hotel with many palm trees and we go. When we are there he say mans is looking at me, he say I smile at them behind his back. Temperature thirty degrees. Everything go wrong. I book a table for dinner and he doesn’t come. Holiday separated us. We come back and work together and his jealousy is getting worse and worse. He say Italk to girls more