The truth is that even though we can’t help seeking our Happiness in the world around us, those people and things are ‘fallible’. They will sometimes – often, maybe – let us down. The good-looking husband might run off, or you might ‘fall’ for another man, or you might lose the weight and put it all back on again, after nine months of getting up at six in the morning to run eight kilometres in the rain, or your expensive breast implants might go lopsided and ‘wonky’. And then where are you? Exactly! Not happy!
If you ask me, we approach this Happiness business all wrong. It’s not something to be tracked and hunted down, like a wild animal that needs to be tamed, and once we have it house-trained it will never give us any trouble, ever again. And everything will be perfect, for ever.
I don’t know how it happened but I once heard a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman I know next to nothing about, except that she wore desperate hickey clothes, and she said, ‘Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.’
I ‘got’ what she meant. She was trying to say that we must just get on with things, doing our best, helping people out, taking pleasure and contentment where we can find them, and – I think this is the important bit – being glad of them. If we take the ‘life is a vale of tears’ bit as a given, then when something nice happens – a box of Thorntons, a cardigan at half price, an hour-long special of Fair City – then we can savour it and be grateful.
My daughters think that I never feel unhappy. They think unhappiness is something that, at some mythical age, you outgrow. They assume I have the wisdom of my years and that as an elderly-ish person I don’t have any yearnings, that they all fell away from me, along with the elasticity of my skin. But I’ll be perfectly frank with you: despite the consolation of my faith, I oftentimes feel incomplete.
Mostly I’m too busy to notice it, thank God. But it’s always there, a gnawy little animal clawing away in my gut. And I have to live with it, like we all do. We can’t give in to it. As my mammy, Granny Maguire, used to say, ‘We can’t have grief for everything.’ Then she’d hit me a backstroke to the side of my head and say, ‘Stand up straight, you big long galoot.’
Luckily I have my television ‘shows’ and bananas and custard and the companionship of Mr Walsh and the knowledge that when I die I’ll go to heaven …
Although sometimes I think that whole heaven business is a bit hard to swallow. It sounds like a children’s fairy tale they tell us to keep us placid. I even tried discussing it with Father Heyward when he was home from the missions, but he told me I can’t let my thinking go ‘down that road’ and to pray to strengthen my faith. And I suppose, whether there is or there isn’t a heaven, we just have to get on with things as best we can here on this earthly plain.
That is my ‘take’ on Happiness.
H is also for Hypochondriacs. We Walshes are not hypochondriacs, despite what Dr O’Byrne said that time, when we made him visit in the middle of the night because Helen had a Rice Krispie stuck in her throat. We are unlucky, that’s all we are. We ‘catch’ everything going, even though I have a little bottle of that squirty hand-sanitizer in my bag and our house is very clean. It is not our fault.
I is for Injury. However it was Mr Walsh’s fault when he ‘banjoe’d’ his neck on the Log Flume Ride in Disneyland. The first time, when he went with all the accountants from work, he knew no better. While the ride was moving, he stood up, like all the other accountants did – peer pressure, egging each other on, like a clatter of schoolboys – and several of them sustained injuries. But the second time he went, he knew full well the dangers.
I was with him and I warned him specifically not to do it and still he did. And can you tell me what happened? Yes! He hurt his fecking neck again and we had to spend our ‘precious’ time in LA looking for a chiropractor. Not to mention spending our precious holiday money.
J is for Jumped-up Cauliflower. Or, as Claire insists on calling it: ‘broccoli’. But – and I know this for an absolute true fact because I spoke to a well-known greengrocer about it – broccoli does not exist. It is simply cauliflower with notions. It is cauliflower with ‘big ideas’. It is cauliflower which refuses to accept its limitations. It is cauliflower which has, by dint of its desire to be different, dyed itself green. In short, it is a cauliflower looking for notice.
I take a live-and-let-live attitude to all things – ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you I’m the most easy-going person you could meet – but Claire decided she wanted broccoli for her wedding luncheon and not because, as she claimed, it was her favourite vegetable, but because she wanted to embarrass me in front of my country relations, none of whom would know broccoli from a bale of hay.
Rachel was the same for her wedding – wanting some non-existent things called sugar snap peas. And – get this – and me bould Rachel also wanted ‘a vegetarian option’, which I was mortified by. To offer ‘a vegetarian option’ to my relations was saying: (a) we can’t afford a meat dinner for all of you, and (b) we don’t want you here anyway.
K is for Knickers. I know what knickers are, of course I do. With five daughters, who all treated me like their personal laundress, of course I would.
However – without any prior warning – someone somewhere invented this new type of knicker called a G-string. But nobody told me, so when I was doing Rachel’s laundry, I thought I’d done something wrong. I thought I’d somehow ‘unravelled’ a good pair of black lace knickers, so that all of the front was gone, leaving only a bare string of a thing and most of the back was gone too. But no, she says. That’s the way it’s meant to be, and by the way, the bit you think is the front is actually the back.
It took me a long while to understand what she was saying and when I finally did I was disgusted. Why would anyone wear anything so uncomfortable? To be sexy, I suppose. Sexy, sexy, sexy, this whole world is obsessed with being sexy. Sexy sofas, sexy halibut, sexy reports on weapons of mass destruction!
Apparently, I have it all wrong – they wear G-strings to avoid VPL, nothing to do with being sexy. (Do they take me for an eejit?) Then, as if things weren’t confusing enough, they changed the name from G-strings to thongs.
Well, I have my own secret word for them. I call them ‘slicers’. I get a ‘salty’ feeling between my buttocks just thinking about them. And here’s some more news for you – you can still have VPL with Slicers, it’s just that the VPL is in a different place; it’s higher up. Sometimes, when I’m out and about, I do ‘mental surveys’ on the syndrome and Helen slaps me and tells me to stop staring at women’s arses.
But I’m not staring in ‘that way’. I’m simply interested, and what I find fascinating is that the dullest-looking woman could be sporting a Slicer. You know what I mean, she might have a ‘mammy hair-do’ and Ecco shoes and a pair of elasticated white linen trousers – and a black Slicer!
One more thing – why do they keep renaming things? Marathon was a fine name. Ulay was a fine name. Jif was a fine name. I’ve successfully made the – frankly challenging – transition to Snickers and Olay. But I will persist with calling ‘Cif’ ‘Jif’ till the day I die. ‘Jif’ was a perfect name. ‘Jif’ sounds speedy and efficient and full of ‘cleaning power’. ‘Cif’ is all wrong.
L is for Lad. A ‘slangy’ word for the male ‘member’. I’ve heard my daughters say it. ‘Flute’ is another one. And Mickey, Willie, dick, knob, quare fella, quare lad … there’s no end of terrible names. Joystick, there’s another one.
They ‘blithely’ talk away in front of me, all that dirty stuff, just like I’m not there. ‘How big is his lad?’ ‘I’d say he never washes his Mickey.’ ‘That flute of his has seen plenty of action.’
I am their mother! They have no respect.
L is also for Light Bulb. This is a joke that Claire told me. She says, ‘How many Mammy Walshes does it take to change a light bulb?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How many Mammy Walshes does it take to change a light bulb?’ (I will admit I was ‘chuffed’ to have my na
me in a joke. Eejit, that I am, I should have known there would be a ‘sting’ in the ‘tail’.) ‘None!’ says Claire, and then her voice goes all ‘old’ and ‘quavery’ and I realize she’s ‘being’ me. ‘You all go on out and enjoy yourselves and I’ll just sit here in the dark.’
I wouldn’t mind but it’s not even true! I am great fun. I am always the last off the dance floor at a funeral.
M is for Mother. My mother, that is. Granny Maguire. A great woman she was. Knew her own mind and took nonsense from no one. She loved her six children fiercely but she loved me the most and she showed that love by not displaying it, if you know what I mean.
With Imelda it was, ‘Look at Imelda and the fine bit of cloth she got in the sale.’ Or with Audrey it was, ‘Audrey’s after getting a great job, doing filing for Boulton the solicitor.’ Whereas with me it was, ‘Mary, you useless gomaloon, you’ll never amount to anything.’ Or, ‘Mary, you’d better get used to living under my roof. Shur, what man would look at you and you as high as a house?’ It was like a secret code we had, so that the other girls didn’t feel left out.
With her black teeth, her pipe and her tendency for setting the dogs on a person, Mammy was a card. In later life she kept greyhounds and she loved them so much they slept in the bed with her. (Slept slept with her, according to Helen, but don’t mind her, she slanders everyone.)
As soon as you’d arrive at Mammy’s house, she’d open the door and she’d shout, ‘Go on, Gerry, go on, Martin, tear the face off of them.’ (She’d named the dogs after Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.)
I’d be barely out of the car and these two blurs would come racing over to me and pin me to the wall, barking loud enough to make my eardrums burst. Oh, it was an absolute howl, but after a while I stopped bringing my children because they aren’t as resilient as me.
Mammy, of course, would be in convulsions. She had a great sense of humour. ‘Don’t let on you’re ascared.’ She’d be thumping the ground with her stick from laughing so much. ‘They can smell the fear, they can smell the fear.’
Not everyone saw the good in Mammy the way I did. After my father died, Mr Walsh said – mind you he had a few drinks on him – that Daddy had probably committed suicide by persuading his heart to stop. (The laugh is, his own mother, Granny Walsh, was an absolute demon. She’d growl at you if you tried to take her perfume away. And the only reason she’d be holding onto the perfume with a death-grip was because she’d drunk everything else in the parish.)
When my mammy, Granny Maguire, used to come on her holidays to us, she’d use her stick to bang on her bedroom floor for attention, looking for help to ‘go’ to the bathroom, as it were. Downstairs in the kitchen we’d be drawing straws. Just a little ‘game’ we had. Especially if she hadn’t done a number two in a while. Oh, she was a character! She certainly livened things up. You’d miss her now that she’s gone.
M is also for Mickriarch. It means an Irish matriarch. Obviously, I am a matriarch. Obviously, I am Irish and Irish people are often called ‘Micks’. When they are not being called ‘Paddies’. I have a ‘niggling’ suspicion that being called a Mick is not exactly respectful. I’m not sure I should be glad to be called a Mickriarch. The ‘jury’ is still ‘out’.
N is for … Well, do you know something? This will give you a laugh. I can’t think of a single word that begins with N that is relevant to my life! I’m racking my brains here. N is for nappies, of course, but I’ll tell you something: my nappy-changing days are over. I did too many for too long and I’m not doing any more. If my daughters want to have babies, that’s their business and good luck to them and I will ‘mind’ the child if they want to go on a ‘date night’ with their ‘partner’. But I’m not changing any more nappies. I’m sick of it.
O is for Outspan Head. Outspan is a brand of orange. I don’t know if they’re still on the go, but it’s a brand name for orange, just to ‘put’ you in the ‘picture’.
The thing is, I like to look after myself, beauty-wise. And that time when Margaret shocked us all by leaving her husband and losing her job and running off to stay with her friend Emily in Los Angeles, I decided I’d visit her. Just to see that she was all right. I mean she was behaving badly out of character and I was worried about her – she’d been through a lot – and also … I have to admit … I’ve always wanted to see the Hollywood sign and drive along Sunset Boulevard in a silver car with the roof down and, at traffic lights, lower my sunglasses and make eye contact with the man in the car in the next lane … Anyway!
Yes, as a concerned mother I decided to go and visit Margaret. But I can go nowhere or do nothing without my ‘entourage’. Will they be as quick to jump in beside me in my coffin when I die, I often ask them.
Mr Walsh is fine, he is no trouble. But Helen – of course – decided she wanted to come. And Anna, who had just begun her transition from useless, badly dressed layabout to a valued member of society, wanted to come too. So, with a heavy heart, I booked four flights.
The thing is, that summer was particularly wet in Ireland. Water bucketing from the skies morning, noon and night. I’d been hoping to pick up a bit of a ‘colour’ before I arrived in Los Angeles. I didn’t want to get off the plane looking blue-white, like a milk bottle, the way all Irish people do.
So I treated myself to a can of fake tan. I bought it in the local chemist and maybe that was where I made my mistake. Maybe if I’d gone into town to one of the department stores I’d have fared better.
Anyway, what happened was this, the night before we left for Los Angeles, I put some fake tan on my face and neck – plenty, plenty (a bird never flew on one wing). And I went off to occupy myself, because the waiting makes me nervous.
After a good half-hour had passed, I looked in the mirror and I was still as pale as whey and I wasn’t at all happy. However, I went and watched another of my shows to take my mind off things, but the next time I looked, still nothing had changed. Nothing. And maybe, like Margaret said when she eventually saw me, I panicked. I put another thick layer on. And half an hour later, another layer. I mean, I know they say it takes a while for the colour to ‘come up’ but nothing at all was happening and I couldn’t handle the thought of standing out in Los Angeles like a big, pale, just-off-the-bus eejit.
Before I went to bed, I put on another layer. And when I woke in the morning and sat up in the bed and put on my glasses and looked in the mirror, I thought I was having a vision. I was orange. Bright glow-in-the-dark orange. I was like a space-hopper.
Clearly, I’d been given a dud batch of tan. I must admit I ‘harboured’ suspicions that it wasn’t a proper brand of tan at all, that ‘Jade’ (she says that’s her name) in the chemist had been knocking up batches of it in her back room and filling cans and ‘flogging’ it to the likes of me.
Well, the shrieks of laughing out of Helen! They probably heard her on ‘Mulholland Drive’. Even Anna was laughing a lot. But Mr Walsh wasn’t laughing. He was worried that everyone would be looking at us on the plane. (Not that his ‘look’ was much to write home about. The whole time we were in ‘LA’ he wore shorts, Argyle socks and his good black brogues, his ‘funeral’ shoes, I call them.)
I couldn’t admit I’d been ‘at’ the fake tan, because that smacks of vanity, so I insisted I’d got a lovely colour just from sitting in the back garden. (Even if it hadn’t been raining badly enough to start rounding up animals into pairs, I’d never sit in our garden. I hate the place – the cord from the telly doesn’t stretch far enough. Mr Walsh was meant to sort out an extension lead, but he didn’t because no one does anything around here, only me.)
I was that close to putting a paper bag on my head for the plane journey and I wish I had because Helen kept pressing my call button and saying made-up things to the air hostesses like, ‘Outspan Head here needs a blanket – to cover her face.’ Then ten minutes later, she’d press my bell again and when the air hostess appeared, Helen would say, ‘Outspan Head wants a glass of wine to take the edge
off her shame.’
Outspan Head this, Outspan Head that, Outspan Head the other. And it’s a twelve- hour flight to Los Angeles. Twelve of the longest hours of my life.
P is for Padded Envelopes of Loveliness. I was telling you there earlier about Anna and how bloody useless she always was. Well – and I still can’t figure out exactly what happened – at some stage she got some qualifications and started working for a ‘crappy’ Irish cosmetic company, doing their public relations.
But the next thing, herself and her friend Jacqui moved to Manhattan and doesn’t Anna get a job doing public relations for Candy Grrrl!
A big part of Anna’s job was to send out samples of the make-up to magazines and newspapers, looking for ‘write ups’. But sometimes, she’d slip a few lipsticks and mascaras and nail varnishes into one of those envelopes that are lined with bubble wrap and send them my way. And, honest to the Lord God, I can’t tell you! My hands would be shaking so much I’d hardly be able to open them. (I’d have to go and get the good scissors because I wanted to save the envelope – I mean, even the envelope was handy.)
I was never more proud of Anna. I suppose, technically, what she was doing was stealing and that’s a sin, but they had fecking-well loads of the products. Loads and loads and loads. Rachel went into the cupboard where all the stuff is kept and she regaled us with stories so exaggerated we were all worried she was back on the drugs again.
But it’s true. They’ve loads of the stuff; they’re hardly going to miss a few highlighters!
And it got better. The company that Anna worked for – McArthur on The Park – did the publicity for several other cosmetic companies, so Anna would do ‘swapsies’ with their public relations people – she’d hand over a clatter of Candy Grrrl goodies and they’d give her a load of stuff from Bergdorf Baby, EarthSource, Visage, Warpo and lots of others. (My favourite is Visage. It’s French. Very dear. My least favourite would be Warpo. Grand if you want to look like a clown. But I don’t.) Then she’d parcel them up into those beautiful envelopes and send them on to me and her sisters, and I have to tell you that when the ring would come on the doorbell and the postman would hand over the Padded Envelope of Loveliness, I’d often take a reel in the head, I’d be that excited.