"D'you mind if I use the loo, love?" the delivery man asked me from beneath his DHL cap. His eyes had that fatherly glint, that persuasive masculine charm.
"Sure,” I said, leaving the door open. “Make yourself at home.”
An hour or so later, I went to the sink to fill a glass of water and saw the delivery man stretched in the hammock of our back garden. I had to do a double take, but yes, it was him, this man of fifty or so that I had let use the loo.
"Sorry?" I called from the back door. He didn’t budge, so I walked up the path with a rolling pin in my hand, right to his side. He drew a drawn-out snore, his cap shielding his face from the sun.
I had to look around to make sure I was in my own back garden. The ivy trellis, the cherub fountain, my summer lounger.
On his second snore, I gave his arm a pull, the rolling pin at the ready behind my back.
"Oh! What is it?" he asked, lifting his cap.
"Ah, well, what’re you doing?"
"What d’you mean?"
"Well, you're in my hammock, in my garden."
"Sure you said to make myself at home."
"I didn't mean literally. I meant you could use the loo. I didn't expect you to move in."
"Well, you should be more careful with your words then, shouldn't you?"
I didn't know what to say. I threw the rolling pin into the hydrangea, took a garden chair and sat down.
"There’s no need to get so worked up, love," the delivery man said. "Stress is bad for the heart."
"You're on my property. You’re trespassing."
"Trespassing? It’s hardly that serious. I’m not a thief, and you know I'm not going to stay forever. I just couldn’t help myself when I saw the hammock.”
He fixed his position; “I'll tell you what though, love. This heat would have you parched."
A moment later, I found myself in the kitchen filling a glass of water for the stranger in my hammock. In the fridge, I saw the fresh Wexford strawberries in their cardboard box and figured he would like a few. Danny wasn't going to be home from Copenhagen in time to eat them, and I wasn’t going to make Eton mess for one.
"Nice gaff you've got here," the delivery man said when I gave him the strawberries. "Married?"
"I am."
“Ah yeah, the good ones are always taken.” He gave me a wink then. “Long?”
“Four years.”
"I see. An’ where's the lucky man?" he asked as strawberry juice ran down his chin.
"He's away on work. Has to go to Europe a lot.”
“An’ he leaves a girl like you home alone?”
I smiled; “It was part of the deal, I suppose. I knew what I was getting myself into.”
“Hm.”
“He’s great, really, when he’s here. Very affectionate and, you know, he wants to spend time together…”
I stopped talking when I realised I was picking at a fingernail.
“I see,” the delivery man said. “Kids?”
“No. No kids. Just with Danny’s work it, you know… he wasn’t so sure it was a good idea.”
“Hm. An’ what does this Danny fella of yours do?
“He's an architect."
"Ah, I suppose that explains the fancy garden."
I followed his gaze, not knowing if he was being sincere or sarcastic.
"This was all me, actually. Danny figured it’d be a project I’d enjoy, though I don’t think I ever said I was into landscaping. We have friends over from time to time, but you know yourself, people are busy."
He rested the box of strawberries on his stomach and his head in his hands. The cap visor pointed skyward, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
"I was married once, you know," he said at last.
"Oh yeah?" I said, straightening my back.
"Oh yeah. Louise.”
“And what happened?”
He picked out another strawberry and began to chew.
“Well, see, the thing is I ran this limo service for years, yeah? Good business, driving rich people around. Even drove an American President around for a few days once."
"No way. Which one?"
"Ah, your man there who was so fond of Supermac's they built a plaza in his honour."
He looked at me then. He smiled, and I found myself smiling again.
"But no,” he went on, “the limo was good craic an’ all that, but Louise got awful lonely. I'd be gone all day an’ night, you know."
When he chose another strawberry, I saw no wedding ring. Not even a tan line.
"So, she left you?” I asked, my voice trailing off. “Sorry, that might’ve been a bit forward."
"No, you're grand love. What happened was I cut back on my hours, an’ we gave it another go. We visited our daughter Nicole in Edinburgh, got to see Greece and Rome, went to Bruce Springsteen; we'd a right laugh."
I suddenly needed water.
"So, she got sick? Sorry…"
"You’re grand. No, it just wasn’t enough. We just, you know…”
“Drifted apart?”
“Yeah, drifted apart, an’ there was just no bringing us back together, no matter how hard we tried."
I nodded.
"I'm sorry to hear that..."
"Glenn."
"Glenn. That's tough."
"Ah yeah. Happens all the time, though, doesn’t it? People grow apart, people fall out, marriages end."
"I guess. And now?"
"Now?” He brought his hands together on his belly. “Now I'm a delivery man by day and I do a bit of taxi on weekends. It's grand, I enjoy the work, meeting the people an’ all that."
He reached for his water on the table and drained the glass. I wanted to light a cigarette, to be a smoker, and I needed to move my mouse. But I couldn’t pull myself away from Glenn.
“And so what’s your advice, Glenn? For married couples?”
“My advice?” He shifted in the hammock and brought his feet to the ground, pulling his cap tight on his head. “Sure how could I give marriage advice? I’m divorced.”
"But,” I muttered as I followed him into the house. He stopped to use the toilet again, and I got to the front door first.
“Do you not see some kind of parallel between you and Louise and me and Danny?” I said with my back against the door. “I mean, you were away and he’s away, do you not see the similarity?"
“The similarity? No, not really. Now move it, love, I’ve to get back to work.”
“What? You don’t think our situations are similar?”
“No. Your fella still has someone to come home to, doesn’t he?"
He pushed me out of the way and opened the door. He walked down the front path before turning at the gate; “Similarity,” he said with a shake of his head.
He climbed into his van, and I could see he was laughing as he drove off.
I closed the door and put my back against it. I stood in the hallway then not really thinking about what to do next, just holding myself as I watched how slowly the shadows closed in, listening all the while to a silence I knew would only grow louder.
Gene Murphy is a writer from Kerry, Ireland. His credits include Sonder, Prosetrics and journals across Europe and North America. He has undertaken writing courses with the Irish Writers Centre, and his screenplay, There Exists Darkness and Light, won the Special Mention Award at the 2024 Waterford International Film Festival.