Read No Way to Say Goodbye for Free Online Page A

shaping up to be one of those days. Her dad wasn’t much help, having abandoned his post in favour of joining his friends Patty Winslow and Con Moriarty – the latter had received his starter with his main course. He’d been eating there for twenty-five years so he ate it as a side dish, suggesting he could start a trend. Patty was reading aloud about an incident in the House of Lords and was clearly annoyed – she was banging her fist off the table every few minutes and mumbling about “injustice”. Although she had retired to Kenmare fifteen years ago and had never returned to her home town in Kent, she only ever read the English papers, followed English politics with ferocity and had had the BBC before anyone else in town.
    Mary’s dad and Con were far too busy enjoying their old friend’s frustration to notice or care about the chaos around them.
    It was after seven when she got home, glad that she wasn’t working the bar that night and praying for sleep. A flashy red sports car was parked outside. This irked her for no reason other than it reminded her of her unwanted neighbour. Although the rain had finally stopped it was cold, so she lit a fire and looked through her music collection, searching for something she could disappear into. Nirvana seemed to suit her mood. She lined up their albums. She’d start with the MTV unplugged session before moving on to Nevermind followed by In Utero . She turned the sound up so that she could hear it in the kitchen and was cooking when the doorbell rang. Cobain was singing loudly about a dirty bird and she was absorbed in the melody as she chopped an onion. It was Mr Monkels’s bark and his steady pacing at the door that alerted her to a visitor. She wished whoever it was would go away.
    Penny stood outside, shivering and jumping on the spot.
    “Hey, you,” Mary greeted her, when she opened the door. She was always happy to see her – being with Penny was as easy as being alone.
    “Can I come in?” Penny asked, as though she needed to, and followed Mary to the kitchen. “You’re cooking,” she said, stating the obvious, and grabbed a beer from the fridge.
    “Shepherd’s pie – are you hungry?”
    “No food. I’m on day five of the heartbreak diet and I’m starting to see results.” Penny sipped from the can.
    Even in crisis Mary found her friend amusing. As she cooked they talked about their day. Mary filled Penny in on the histrionics at the bar and Penny told Mary about her trip to Tralee to report on a local man who had won millions on the Euro lottery. By the time dinner was ready she had drunk three cans. Mary tried to insist that she ate by putting a plate of food in front of her. Penny was afraid to go home in case Adam was there and wondered if she should go away for a week or two, but Mary pointed out that she’d done that before in an attempt to end their affair and it hadn’t worked. In fact, as soon as she’d got home he’d turned up at her door and she was right back where she’d started except for her tan. She was subdued over dinner and Mary knew what was going through her friend’s mind: they’d been down this road too many times for her not to. So they sat, and while Mary ate, Penny drank and Kurt Cobain beseeched someone unknown to rape him.
    Penny looked towards the stereo. “Rape me?” she repeated. “Bloody weirdo!”
    “It’s a metaphor for self-loathing,” Mary said.
    “How is it that I’m the one who went to Trinity yet you’re the one full of shit?”
    “It’s a mystery.” She was glad Penny had come over.
    Just then Mr Monkels began to bark and head-butt the window.
    “Who the hell is that?” Mary said.
    Penny sat up, alarmed that Adam might have followed her to her friend’s home. She stayed in the kitchen while Mary went to the door.
    “There’s no one here,” Mary called.
    “Are you sure?”
    “All clear!” It wouldn’t be like Adam to come after Penny, as much as Mary knew he would want to. Poor