I was saying, ‘We’ll be back before you know it!’ And, ‘Next time you must come to us. It’s safe now – Helen has moved out.’ And, ‘Tell so-and-so we were asking for them!’
Myself and Mr Walsh finally got out into the open air and I felt a great relief, because I’d been starting to get the oddest feeling that we’d be locked into the leave-taking for all eternity. Still smiling, we got into the car and I hissed to Mr Walsh, ‘Would you slow it down,’ because he was clambering too quickly.
Carmel and ‘Cold Fish’ Kibble were standing at their front door, smiling to beat the band and watching us, and I was smiling and Mr Walsh was smiling and everyone was smiling (except the surly pup grandsons, who’d gone back to their ‘gameboys’ again).
Then I was putting on my seatbelt and I had a pain in my face from smiling and Mr Walsh started backing the car out of the drive and I opened my window and stuck out my arm and shouted, ‘Bye now, lovely to see you again. See you soon!’
Carmel and ‘Cold Fish’ were waving like billy-o and calling, ‘Bye, bye, goodbye, safe journey, bye.’ And everyone was waving and shouting and the car was gathering speed and at last we were out of their sight and we got to the end of the road and I said, ‘So, that went well.’ And I felt, that yes, it had gone well.
Then, like being gripped by a huge cold claw, I realized I’d left my handbag behind.
‘Stop!’ I said to Mr Walsh, who had his eyes fixed on the horizon and was driving like a demon, keen to get home to watch the golf.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Stop, stop, pull in, pull in.’ I said. And even then I was thinking, ‘Do I need the bloody bag? What’s in it? My purse with approximately 137 euro, two credit cards, a debit card, my driving licence and photos of the grandchildren. Then there’s my phone, my reading glasses, my sunglasses, my green scapulars, my Padre Pio relic, the thirteen lipsticks Anna gave me, my Rennies, my Strepsils, my heart tablets, my tissues, my three umbrellas, my … ’
‘What?’ Mr Walsh asked anxiously.
‘My handbag,’ I said. ‘I’m after leaving it behind.’
‘What?’ he says. ‘Back there? With them?’ And he’s looking around on the floor of the car, trying to prove me wrong.
‘It’s not here,’ I say, and I’m starting to sound hysterical. I’m patting myself and looking on the back seat, but I’ve really left the shagging thing behind. ‘Pull in, pull in,’ I say, so he does, and three or four motorists ‘beep’ us and I’m so up to high doh that I nearly ‘flick’ them the ‘V’s.
‘Can you manage without it?’ Mr Walsh asked. And I was trying so hard to convince myself that I could.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘No, I suppose is the honest answer.’
He looked like he was going to take a weakness. ‘Have I to go back?’ he asked.
‘You do,’ I said.
‘I’m not going in,’ he says. ‘I’ll wait outside with the engine running. You just run in – is there any way you could get in without them seeing you? Where do you think you left it?’
‘In the lounge,’ I said. ‘By the couch.’
‘I’m not coming in,’ he repeats.
‘You have to,’ I hiss. ‘They’ll think you’re rude.’
‘I’m not coming in,’ he says.
‘You fecking well are,’ I said.
‘So you want me to drive back there now?’
‘I do,’ I said.
So he did.
He drove back into the Kibbles’ drive, and through their front-room window you could see their startled faces inside. They’d thought they’d got rid of us nice and handy and that they could start eating the leftover biscuits. Before I was even out of the car, Carmel had the front door open.
‘Ah, hello,’ she goes, and she’s as confused as bedamned.
‘Would you believe …’ At this point I threw my head back and gave a little tinkle of forced laughter. ‘Would you believe I’m after forgetting my handbag?’
‘Oh, your handbag,’ she says and she nearly breaks her neck with the speed that she races back into the house to find it.
She gives it to me and I say, ‘Well, goodbye again.’
‘Goodbye, indeed,’ she says. ‘Kids, kids,’ and she’s calling to the surly grandsons. ‘Come and say goodbye to Mr and Mrs Walsh!’
‘What the fuck are they doing back here?’ one of them shouts and his voice was muffled by biscuits.
‘Come and say goodbye!’ Carmel ordered.
And they both shouted, both of them with their mouths full of biscuits, ‘We already said goodbye.’
‘Bye, so,’ I said.
‘Bye,’ calls Mr Walsh, who’s half in, half out of the car.
‘Yes, bye,’ Carmel says.
Then we go on our way again. But, for some strange reason, it doesn’t feel anything like as nice as the first time we said goodbye.
That, my friends, is an example of a False Goodbye. There’s some saying by Confucius, or one of those philosopher lads, that says you can’t step in the same stream twice. Although I have no time for people telling me things unless they’re priests, I must admit your man has a point.
G is for Grandchildren. Like all my friends at bridge, my grandchildren are my pride and joy and they love their grandma (me). Kate was my first and, naturally, I was overjoyed, especially because I beat Maisie Boylan and Terrie Hand in the ‘Grandma Race’. (In the interests of full honesty and transparency I should mention I was not technically the first, as Honour Carrig’s daughter had a little boy when the daughter was sixteen and still at school and – but you’ve probably guessed this – unmarried, but she doesn’t count. Honour Carrig is the object of our pity, not our envy, especially as the daughter tripped off to Australia – of all faraway places! – leaving Honour to bring up the youngster.)
So anyway, it was a tense oul time – you could call it a ‘Granny-off’ – waiting to see which of us would be a granny first – and Claire obliged. She’s not usually one to oblige, but there you go. Then her marriage broke up and the jealous regard from Maisie and Terrie dimmed a little – you know that fake pity that people do? It’d sicken you, so it would – but I brazened it out. It’s important to keep face.
I’m happy to say that Kate has grown up to be a beautiful young woman with a strong mind of her own. (Between ourselves, she’s a nightmare, just like Helen was. She says we are ‘pitiful’ and ‘asswipes’ and sometimes ‘pitiful asswipes’. Kate was smoking at the age of twelve, and not just the usual cigarettes you buy in a box but those ones you roll yourself from a pouch of tobacco so she was always spilling strands of it on my good clean carpet that Mr Walsh had just hoovered.) If you want the God’s honest, what Kate needs is a good cliothar. A few raps of the wooden spoon wouldn’t have done her any harm at all. But you can’t say that either these days. Soon we won’t be able to say anything. We’ll have to communicate by winking, like that man in the book did.
Claire went on to have two more children, first a boy called Luka, who was the sweetest little thing but is now a teenager and is busy with ‘his own life’. They also have a girl, Francesca, who is eleven, and I must say it gladdens my heart to see a confident child. In she comes, blathering away, telling me things like I know nothing. ‘Grandma, you should recycle that Weetabix box.’ ‘Another new blouse, Grandma? How many blouses can one old woman need?’ She sees me running the tap into a colander, washing the lettuce for Mr Walsh’s salad and tells me, all scolding-like, ‘We need to conserve water.’ ‘Conserve water?’ says I. ‘In this country? Where the fields could be sold by the gallon rather than by the acre?’ Oh yes, she says, the little smart alec, and then she gives me a load of guff about the planet and the expense of water purification and suchlike and boring the swiss off me (am I allowed to say that? I hear Helen using it but I can’t see how it’s vulgar). I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, there’s no need to conserve water in Ireland, it’s ‘political correctness’ gone mad. Sometimes, when I’m with F
rancesca, the palm of my right hand starts to itch with the longing to hit her and I have to throw my arm round her shoulder to calm the itching down. And if that doesn’t work, I say that nature calls and I leave the room.
Margaret and Paul (or ‘Garv’ as everyone seems to call him these days) have two children, a nine-year-old-boy called JJ and a six-and-a-half-year-old girl called Holly. JJ is a lovely young soul (between ourselves, he’s as odd as bedamned). Forever watching The Sound of Music and wanting to be Liesl and twirling round the place with a tiara on his head and breaking my beautiful Belleek picture frames that I’d already had to replace after his cousin Luka destroyed the first batch by driving into them, pretending to be a tank.
I was minding JJ one day and didn’t we bump into Mona Hopkins. ‘This is JJ,’ I said, shoving him forward and saying a silent little prayer: Don’t make a show of me.
‘Ooh,’ says Mona, making a study of your man, in his blue nail varnish, his home-made net headband and his mammy’s old T-shirt that says ‘Boys Are Mean’. ‘I’d say you’ll break a few girls’ hearts when your time comes. What do you want to be when you grow up?’
‘Darcey Bussell,’ JJ says, quick as a flash.
‘You do not!’ says I, and I was this near to hopping my hand off his head. ‘You want to be a lorry driver. Or a cowboy. He does,’ I said to Mona Hopkins and I was sort of begging, you know …?
‘Are we finished talking to this old woman now?’ JJ says. ‘I want to prance around and imagine things.’
Holly is as bad but in a different way. A timid little dolly, neat and tidy and scared of her own shadow. A drip. A right watery oul drip, not a laugh to be had from her. There was one day I was left in charge of her and I suggested we go to the zoo, but she said in her whispery little voice that she was afraid of the monkeys. Then she said, ‘There might be boys at the zoo!’ She put her little hand on her chest and said, ‘I couldn’t handle boys!’ Well, for the love of the redeemer! What made her think I wanted to go to the zoo? I can’t stick the zoo! The smell in the elephant house – it stays with me for months afterwards.
So I said, ‘Well, what do you want to do? Just tell me and we’ll do it!’ She looked down at her pretty little dress and started swinging back and forth and she was clearly working up to a request, and suddenly I guessed what it was and I went cold, so very quickly I said, ‘I’m not going to Claire’s Accessories! Not again! I’m not able for all that … stuff.’ The last time I’d been in Claire’s Accessories, I don’t know what happened to me, but it was like all the earrings and hair slides and sparkly stuff started crowding round and clamouring at me and clawing at me and I took a weakness and thought I was going to faint. The assistant made me sit on a chair, like I was an old person. It was humiliating and I’m not doing it again.
Instead I took Holly to the Bodies exhibition, because Maisie Boylan went that time her relations were over from Canada and said it was simply marvellous and I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I’ll have to admit I wasn’t ‘gone’ on it; it was like being in a butcher’s shop and once or twice I had to swallow hard for fear I might vomit. But that was nothing compared to the carry-on of Holly. Everything was ‘Ewww’ and if it wasn’t ‘Ewww’ it was ‘Gross’ and when we got to the small intestines, she started to cry and demanded to be taken home.
‘Would you, for the love of God, shush!’ I said. ‘People are looking.’ But she wouldn’t let up and in the end I had to get her out of there and, to make matters worse, there was no refund on the tickets. Of course, with my senior citizen discount, mine wasn’t so dear, but still it was a waste of good money.
And there was worse to come – when we got back to the house, I got the head bitten off me by Margaret. ‘What were you thinking of, bringing her to that yoke?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you just bring her to Monsoon and buy her a hairband! She won’t sleep for a week.’
I kept my counsel. I behaved with dignity. But I made up my mind there and then that that little drip could feck off if she thought I was ever taking her anywhere again. I bided my time and at Christmas I got my chance – she begged me to take her to Puss in Boots. ‘Please, Grandma, please.’
‘But what if you think the cat is scary?’ I asked (being sarcastic like, but not letting on).
‘I won’t, I won’t!’ she said, all pleady.
‘No, no, it might upset you,’ I said. ‘No, we’d best not chance it.’
Haha.
Rachel and Luke (see under R for ‘Real Men’) have a little fellow, just coming up to two years of age. They’ve called him Moses (I ask you, but that’s the sort of caper they get up to in Brooklyn, so I’m told. When they asked me at bridge what his name was, I said, ‘Mike. Michael Patrick.’ I don’t care if I’m lying. I’m not setting myself up to be a laughing stock.) Despite his mortifying name, Moses is a handsome, good-natured little chap – he takes after his daddy.
Anna and her man have yet to ‘spawn’. Although I would hope that she would wait until she has a ring on her finger before she does it, but who cares what I think?
Helen says she’s never having children. Between ourselves, that is a big ‘relief’ to me.
G is also for Golf. Mr Walsh is a big fan of the golf. He plays a lot of it and when he’s not playing it, he’s watching it on the ‘box’. But I don’t mind. Not now that we have two tellies.
G is also for God. Or the Man Upstairs, as I like to call Him. He is definitely a ‘him’. I have no time for any of this Goddess lark. Or people who say they see God in nature. God is God, the way they describe Him in the bible. I am very devout. God is extremely powerful and it is best to keep on His good side.
Because of all the worry caused by my daughters, I pray a lot. If I was to be ‘picky’ with God, I’d have to say that He doesn’t always answer my prayers. But it doesn’t stop me asking. Father Lumumbo says that we shouldn’t treat our prayers as a ‘shopping list’ of all the things we’d like, which is baffling to me. If I am not to pray for nice things, then what am I to pray for?
H is for Happiness. I am not given to ‘thinking’ about things because, as far as I can see, the people who think a lot and even ‘philosophize’ about life are the most miserable of the lot of us. They are the ones who never smile at christenings and won’t eat a sandwich, and when you ask them why, they say, ‘What’s the point?’ And you say, ‘Shur, you have to eat to stay alive.’ And they look at you with ‘contempt’ and say, ‘Look at you, with your ham sandwiches, thinking you can cheat death. We’re all going to die.’ Miserable and rude, that’s what you become if you think too much.
My stance is that the less you think the better. I myself try to never think about things and if it does happen by accident I do not ‘dwell’ on them.
You see, Happiness is a very tricky business. Especially because one thing I’ve noticed about the modern world is that everyone thinks they are entitled to be happy all the time. That Happiness is the ‘default’ position and every other emotion is meant to be escaped from. That if a person is not happy all the time, they’re doing something wrong, and they have to find the right way to do things so that they can be happy all the time, if you get me.
I’ve seen it over and over again, with my girls boohooing away every time they’ve had a tragedy. ‘Mam, I want to be happy.’ ‘Mam, I was soooo happy.’ ‘Mam, when will I be happy again?’ Then they start blaming themselves. ‘Mam, what did I do wrong?’ ‘Mam, I can’t believe this has happened to me again.’ ‘Mam, is it because my knockers are too small?’ And so on and so forth, till I am blue in the face offering reassurance and Cornettos.
When things go wrong in my daughters’ lives – and things go wrong in every life – they think they’ve ‘effed it up’. They think they’ve made some terrible mistake that they have to fix in order to be happy again. That they have to get the runaway husband back. Or find a way of controlling their drug addiction. Or get a better job. Or find a nicer house. Or – yes – get bigger knockers. r />
But! And I’m holding up my finger again like the wise old woman I am. I’ve a couple of things to tell you and you’re not going to like either of them.
Unpleasant Truth Number One: we’re not on this earth to be happy. Now before you jump down my throat and say, ‘Life isn’t all that Catholic shite about being a vale of tears,’ will you hear me out?
What I’ve observed over the many, many years of being a mother is that happiness comes and goes, it ‘ebbs’ and ‘flows’. You get lovely peaceful spells when everything is as it should be and all your daughters are behaving themselves and not making a show of you, everything is nicely boxed away and squared off.
Then the next thing you know, something happens out of the blue, and it could be anything – a lost job, a miscarriage, a bout of depression – and suddenly everything is messy and up in the air. And I get annoyed – I admit it, I do! I get into the habit of being content and I like it. I don’t enjoy feeling worried or uncertain or frightened or insecure but it keeps on happening.
Unpleasant Truth Number Two: we put faith in things and people and think that if we ‘possess’ them that we will be happy – for example, having a good-looking husband, losing a stone in weight, paying off a credit-card bill, having a car with a gearbox that works or wearing a C-cup bra.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that – it’s human nature to seek happiness from the people and the world around us. To be honest, I’ve had it up to here with ‘gurus’ who say that you can only get Happiness from within, because it’s all very well for them sitting up there on top of the mountain in their white robes, with no one annoying them. But the rest of us have to live in the ‘real’ ‘world’.