RTÉ Short Story Competion: Planning the Leftovers by Sheila Barrett

About Planning the Leftovers, Shelia says: "The story coalesced from many sources, over time – the world’s shrinking and the new shapes of families – and the mix of loss and delight these can bring. "

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The fire set in the sitting room, Gerard heads towards the kitchen, holding his smutty hands out in front of him. Fiona's own hands are clenched together at her breast. Gerard gives her a quelling look as he passes her. 'He’ll turn up.’

The plane from Chicago landed at 9.00. It’s almost 11.00. Gerard could be right. Sometimes he is. Just not, ever, about Kevin. Fiona wouldn’t mind if she felt Chicago was going well for Kevin, but she hasn’t had that feeling for a single day. ‘He’ll find his feet,’ is Gerard’s mantra, has been all along. ‘Give him time. Construction’s good for him. Harden him up a bit. He needs it, Fiona.’

When she and Gerard get on, he calls her ‘Fee.’ There have been many ‘Fionas’ the past few days. She was shattered when Gerard actually bought Kevin’s ticket, bought it, and handed him the cash to leave. ‘Give him credit, Fiona. He had enough money for two months, he’s lasted nearly two years.’ This unending morning, Gerard refuses to phone Kevin or Aer Lingus, to see if he was even on the plane. ‘He’ll turn up. He’s an adult.’

Fiona certainly hopes that Kevin, twenty-four, is now an adult. She hopes he isn’t nervous of the dark any more, or inclined towards anorexia any more, or inclined towards drink any more. She’s done her bit for this day, anyway. The food is in, ready for the dinner, postponed from Christmas to Saint Stephens Day. The bed is made, the room aired. Their daughter Mags, precious, dependable Mags, will arrive soon with Belinda, who is two. Belinda will deflect their minds from Kevin’s whereabouts, like the variable breeze that keeps the family boat just off the rocks.

‘I’ll text him,’ Mags says. ‘God, Mum, you two get in such a state. The eejit is probably still in Chicago. ‘You’re sure it’s Aer Lingus?’

‘I don’t know what it is.’

‘Ma, don’t look like that. You know Kevin.’

‘Do I? Do I, now?’

Belinda leans her head against Mags’s leg. She has her blanket in one hand and in the other, a dripping rosebud from Kevin’s bedside locker.

‘That’ll mean they’re overturned,’ says Fiona, her eyes filling. ‘It’s all right.’ As she goes for a cloth, she hears Mags tell Belinda, ‘Don’t worry, Chook. Granny’s fine. Physically.’

Gerard, back with the paper, spreads it out on the kitchen table.

‘Not there, please,’ says Fiona. She will proceed with the dinner, no matter what.

‘Well. Nothing’s crashed.’

‘Very good,’ says Mags.

At twelve, the turkey is cooking, covered with strips of bacon. The ham simmers at the back of the cooker. Will it all be spoiled? Kevin loves Christmas food.

Belinda comes into the kitchen, her blanket held studiously to her cheek. They look out at Mags in the back garden, her phone at her ear. She stoops, still talking, picks an apple off the ground and throws it at a magpie. Fiona registers it is a single magpie and touches St Joseph’s tiny feet where he stands, poised to save the day, on the shelf beside the sink. Belinda reaches up to her, and they sit down for a cuddle. That sweet warmth of a child. What does it matter, if only Kevin’s happy? If he’s happy, Fiona can leave all this recrimination and anxiety behind her. No planes have crashed. No tsunami has thundered through Chicago. Kevin is not in Gaza or Ukraine.

The doorbell rings. The doorbell! Fiona has anticipated the sure turn of Kevin’s key in the lock, his complete and perfect materialization in the hall or the sitting room or up the stairs. She puts Belinda on her feet. Gerard gets to the door first. Kevin’s voice. Another voice: a girl’s? Fiona can’t see until Gerard stands back, waving them in – why, Kevin looks well – he looks happy, he has a little tidy beard, he’s almost plump, Kevin - and the girl – oh, sweet God.

‘Meet the wife,’ says her son, with an ecstatic, terrified smile.

‘Well. Well. You’re very welcome, er…’ Fiona whispers.

‘Leila,’ says the girl. She holds out her hand and Gerard shakes it.

‘Come in, dear. Come in.’ Fiona has never hated Gerard until this moment. He’s unperturbed; even cheery. He gives the girl a peck on the cheek. It lands under her eye. Her eyes are brown, calm and very slightly protuberant.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Halpin. Outside that door, he tells me you don’t know.’ She throws up delicate brown hands. ‘Oh, look – this is Belinda, right?’ Her smile is radiant, perfect teeth in a face the colour of – no, honey’s too yellow, Fiona finds herself thinking. Café au lait? Too dull. She supposes her hair is silky black, under that scarf. Belinda offers this girl her blanket.

Gerard, his expression now inscrutable, is ushering them into the sitting room. He’s trying not to laugh, Fiona knows it. She tags along like an old befuddled dog. Kevin and the girl – the wife – her daughter-in-law – sit down on the sofa. Kevin’s acne is completely gone. Belinda leans against the girl’s knee and stares at her, unblinking.

The girl – Leila - straightens Belinda’s blanket with a graceful turn of her wrist. Her profile is gentle, her nose straight but not sharp. Her blush under Fiona’s stare is faint, delicate; she reminds Fiona of a beautiful rabbit. Fiona sees grandchildren in little scarves, beautiful, exquisite grandchildren, maybe shooting toy guns into the air.

‘Oh!’

‘What is it, Ma?’ Kevin shrinks a little.

‘Ham.’

‘Oh, right. Should’ve said. Don’t worry, Ma.’

‘The Christmas meal,’ he explains to – Leila.

‘You eat everything, Kevin,’ the girl says firmly. ‘Your mom’s taken a lot of trouble, haven’t you, Mrs Halpin?’

‘It’s – we could go to the deli,’ Fiona says. She wonders if she’ll faint, for the first time ever. She’s aware that Mags has come in and introduced herself. The day becomes a sort of montage; that was one of Kevin’s pet words. Mags, the girl Leila, who removes her headscarf – ‘We’re family,’ says Kevin, to Fiona’s bemused look. Lovely hair, yes. Mags and Leila set the table in the dining room while Fiona peers helplessly at her ham and bacon-riddled turkey. There are mashed potatoes, thank God, and sprouts and carrots, and somehow people get fed and Leila says she loves it all – nice of her - and then the pudding is all right and Mags and Leila clear the table and go off with Belinda and it’s like it was a year ago, Gerard and Kevin and herself at the table, but the old Kevin is gone.

‘Bit of a shock?’ he asks, looking askance.

‘I’d have liked to be at your wedding, Kevin.’

‘In the mosque, Mum?’

Fiona bites her lip. It is all she can do not to glare at St Joseph by the sink, whose intervention she requested daily. It crosses her mind that Leila, in her scarf, could pose for a portrait of Our Lady. Maybe Joseph had outdone himself.

‘Ah, Mum.’ Kevin is looking at her in a concerned sort of way, the way a man looks, not an anxious boy.

‘It’d have been better than nothing!’ she bursts out.

‘There now,’ says Gerard, soothing. Fiona has never noticed how alike Gerard and Kevin are. They have the same expression of – what? Patience and care. Kevin tells her about going to the mosque – ‘A lark, really, but I was curious. I was thinking you’d like that, you’re so down on drink.’ He tells them about meeting Leila’s father, who one day brought him home to meet his family; of Mr Faloud’s consternation when Kevin and Leila fell in love. ‘Leila got around him, she always does,’ Kevin says proudly. ‘She went on hunger strike.’

‘Indeed,’ Fiona murmurs. ‘What does Mrs Faloud think about all this?’

‘She died when Leila was six, Mum. Anyway, Mr Faloud finally came ‘round when I converted, but we had to wait for me to get the, the full-time job. When I was past probation, he let us go ahead.’

‘So when… ?’

‘Three days ago. This is our honeymoon!’

Their honeymoon. Fiona thinks of Leila’s trusting, motherless smile. ‘You’d like to show Leila a bit of the country, wouldn’t you?’ she hears herself say.

‘Yes.’ Kevin’s face is bright with relief. ‘Yes, that’ll be – I’ll take her to Galway, maybe over to Connemara. We haven’t got long.’

‘Take my car.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

That night, when they close their bedroom door behind them, Gerard tries to take Fiona into his arms, but she puts up her hand. She gives him a long, fierce look. ‘You knew.’

‘Just about.’

‘When?’ She turns her back on him and struggles out of her top. He knows better than to help her. She throws it at the chair.

‘Two days ago. He phoned from the reception. You were at your book club.’

‘What if I’d been home? Would you have told me then?’

‘When you weren’t, he thought he’d like to surprise you.’

Fiona sits down. She nudges off a shoe.

‘Fee, he was so – happy – but so certain he’d disappoint you. He thought – if you could just meet her - then you’d see it was – all right.’

Fiona takes off her other shoe. If she threw it at the wall, they’d hear. ‘They.’ Kevin was now a ‘they,’ with a new wife, a new country, a new religion. ‘Do you suppose – Mr Faloud – is – extreme?’

Gerard sighs. ‘No. I don’t. My only resentment, Fee? He may have finished rearing Kevin better than I could. I will embrace Mr Faloud, if he’ll let me, with all my heart.’

‘It’s just so quick.’

‘It is. It was. Nice girl, though, isn’t she?’ Gerard’s face is lined and tired.

‘I hate it that he couldn’t say it to me.’

But Fiona’s heart is already lurching sneakily towards lift-off. The worst worry is unhappiness, or grinding frustration; loneliness. Kevin seems to have bypassed the lot. Leila will take care of him. She already is. Will he take care of her? Imagine – just throwing her into them like that, the poor girl! A honeymoon with the in-laws! Fiona is about to list the home truths Kevin will hear from her tomorrow, and then, as her breathing begins to echo Gerard’s slowing rhythms, she stops. Leila will be able to do that much more nicely.

There will be time enough to yearn to see their children, to save and plan for fleeting visits. Time enough to be miserable, and Fiona knows she has a great capacity for that, and why? For what?

‘Is Kev still insured on your car?’

‘He is.’ Fiona yawns.

‘Long day.’

‘Good day,’ she says.

Gerard sighs beside her.

‘You should have stopped me buying the ham.’

Gerard is already asleep. Fiona starts planning the leftovers.

Sheila Barrett was born in Dallas, Texas. She moved to Dalkey with her husband, John Barrett, a homecoming Dub, in 1969, and is still in the same house. She has published two novels and a number of short stories. Her more recent writing is grounded in the realities - and drama - of family life. She is working on a novel.