Wednesday's Child by Shane Dunphy Read Free Book Online Page A

could be thoroughly proud of myself.
     
    ‘How d’you think I did?’
     
    ‘You seemed to do grand so far as I could see. But then, I don’t know shite.’
     
    ‘Thanks.’
     
    ‘Shane, go home, have some dinner, watch something mindless on the television and forget about it. There’s tomorrow and the day after and the day after that etc., etc., etc. The O’Gormans and the Kellys and all the others you have on your caseload aren’t going anywhere. You might be public enemy number one today, but in a week or three weeks the phone will ring and there will be Libby O’Gorman on the other end looking for you to do something for her, and you’ll be the
man
. She’s a manipulator. And Gillian is learning the same behaviour. She’ll flutter her eyelashes and expect you to come running. You did theright thing today. You laid some solid ground rules about how your relationship will work. The trick with the O’Gormans is to stick by them.’
     
    I knew she was right.
     
    ‘You in a hurry to get home?’
     
    ‘Not especially.’
     
    ‘Let me buy you dinner?’
     
    ‘I like Indian.’
     
    ‘Indian’s good. Muriel won’t mind?’
     
    ‘She works nights at the shelter. She won’t be home until around midnight. Until then, I’m a free agent.’
     
    ‘Well drive on then. I presume you know a good place.’
     
    ‘Oh no. The Indian place in town is terrible. I said that I liked Indian. I didn’t say the restaurant was any good.’
     
    ‘Oh. Well, let’s go somewhere else then.’
     
    ‘No! I like Indian!’
     
    ‘But I thought you said …’
     
    ‘We will go to the Indian place and will put up with it! It might not be any good, but it’s the only place in town.’
     
    ‘I tell you what. Just as long as it doesn’t give me food poisoning, I’ll give it a shot.’
     
    ‘Can’t promise that.’
     
    I looked over at her, and in the failing light I could see that she was barely suppressing a huge grin. I was glad of her company, and as we made our way back into town the ridiculous conversation continued andAndi and I put the day behind us and effortlessly became friends. It was a friendship I would come to value a great deal over the next year and, when everything began to fall asunder, she would be there for me when few others were.
     

3
     
    The next day dawned bright and cold.
     
    I was renting a small cottage in a tiny hamlet about twenty miles from town, and was still very much living out of boxes. I had moved in on the Monday, started work on the Tuesday and was unpacking as I went along. The cottage consisted of two tiny bedrooms, a good-sized and quite cosy living room which had an open fire and an old (but very comfortable) suite of furniture, a shower and toilet, and a kitchen that was so small I reckoned that the previous occupants must have been the Seven Dwarves. I crawled out of bed, stumbled into the shower and, after I had scrubbed myself into an acceptable level of consciousness, made a pot of coffee. I had to dig around in a cardboard box and unwrap a clean cup from newspaper, only to find of course that I had to wash it anyway to get the newsprint off.
     
    I munched on dry brown toast and drank the coffee as I read the paper, Miles Davis’s
Kind of Blue
playing on a small stereo system I had unpacked. In my head I was going over the events of the previous day, wondering if I could have done things differently. Eventually I gave it up. Maybe I could have been more gentle with Sister Assumpta. But then, Gillian’sstate warranted the comments I made. Perhaps I could have handled the situation at the Kelly’s better, calmed Mrs Kelly, been more sympathetic. I wondered whether I should have refused to go out ten minutes after arriving in the office for the first time with an obviously sick man. Maybe, maybe, maybe … social care is full of maybes. There are almost no absolutes. I checked my diary for the day. There was to be a staff meeting at ten, which would take most