Controlled Explosions Read Free Page A

lasagne. ‘Said your da’d be busy with all these riots, so maybe youse’d need dinner.’
    ‘Oh. Right so. Yeah, em … bring it in.’
    They trudged to the door, keeping a foot of distance between them. Aidan was in the grey uniform of St Luke’s, the boys’ school, his tie loose, blazer over his shoulder. He’d be going off to university in a few months – he’d applied to Dublin, she knew. Pat kept Paula up to date with his life, and she’d see him out and about the odd time, but they’d never been friends. Sometimes that was the way of it, when you knew each other from when you were wee kids. The last time Aidan had spoken this much to her was at her mother’s memorial service.
    Don’t think about that.
    She put her key in the lock, trying not to let him see that every day she came home and opened the door, it happened again for her a little bit. Every single day. As if one day it would be different. Maybe – no, of course not. Her mother hadn’t been there on that last day in 1993 or any other day since. And she wouldn’t be here today.
    Paula put the food container in the fridge. It looked like some kind of stew, too hot for the weather. Aidan stood leaning against the counter, flicking his curtains haircut. She could smell his aftershave – Lynx Africa – and cigarettes too. Of course he smoked, all the cool boys did. She thought about bolting upstairs and bucking on some more Impulse O2. ‘Eh … do you want some tea, or – like, coffee or something?’
    ‘Don’t drink it.’
    Neither did she. There was a total of one coffee shop in town, and it was the kind of place that served it in little metal pots with leaking lids.
    She looked in the fridge. ‘Juice?’ Her dad wouldn’t buy minerals. Her mum hadn’t allowed it.
Think of your teeth, Paula.
They were both still trying to keep to Margaret’s rules, long after she was gone.
    ‘OK.’
    She poured him a glass of Kia Ora and one for herself, and they stood drinking them in silence. It was a hot day and she felt sweat trickling down her back, under her pink shirt and plain M&S bra. Paula had been buying her own bras since she was thirteen – her mother had gone before she’d even needed to wear one. It was Pat who’d taken her that first time, hugely embarrassed but hugely kind. Pat, Aidan’s mother. Oh God. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him. He wouldn’t be interested in any of the crap she talked to Saoirse about, mostly TV and which boys they fancied. Neither of them had said anything for a minute. Two minutes. Paula started to panic, opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
    Aidan cleared his throat. ‘Eh … you going to Magnum’s Saturday?’
    ‘Dunno. Maybe.’ She was officially too young to get into Magnum PI’s, the local disco, but they usually turned a blind eye if you were seventeen and had a provisional driving licence.
    ‘It’s shite, but like it’s the only place round here.’
    ‘Yeah, God, it’s awful, isn’t it?’ She loved Magnum’s. She loved the cheap sugary cocktails, she loved the music, S Club 7 and Steps and Spice Girls, and she loved dancing with her friends in a big circle, too loud for anyone to ask her about her missing ma or her cop da, too dark for anyone to recognise her as
that wee Maguire girl, you know, the one whose mother …
    ‘Might see you there then.’
    She breathed in, hard. ‘Yeah, might do.’ God, he was practically
asking her out
.
    Aidan was moving now, rearranging his hair again. ‘You don’t have a mobile, do you?’
    ‘Nah.’ Some people at school were getting them now, but not her yet. PJ wasn’t keen on the idea or the expense.
    ‘Well. If anything happens … get me at school or something.’ His school finished ten minutes later than hers. They did it to keep the girls and boys apart, which didn’t work at all. ‘You know … if they give you shit again.’
    ‘OK. See you.’
    He didn’t look at her as he went out the door, jiggling his car keys