Chapter 5
5
Stunned into silence, six faces stared at me.
Claire was the first to find her voice. “Anna, you’ve gone insane.”
A quick introduction to my sisters. Claire, the eldest, had an important job in the upper echelons of a global charity, wore covetable clothes, and talked a lot about sex and sexism. She budgeted for Botox the way other people budget for car insurance. (A necessity.) She was insanely generous and shared four adult children with her long-term partner, Adam. Most likely to say, “Aaah, what time is it? Nearly lunchtime? G’wan then, not too strong.” (In fact, so was Adam. They were very well matched.)
“Completely insane,” Helen insisted. “Who wants to live in Ireland? It’s a shithole!”
“An absol ute shithole,” Mum insisted.
Helen was the fifth Walsh sister, the only one younger than me. At first glance she seemed like a high-spirited teenager. Devoid of filter, her combative energy won her enemies wherever she went. She’d never fitted in and she’d never cared. Self-employed (because she’d kept getting sacked), she made a decent enough living as a private detective. She was in a long-term, opposites-attract relationship with a calm, quiet, ridiculously good-looking man called Artie, with whom she had a little girl, Regan.
“Anna? What about your job?” Margaret, the second eldest, was direct but never cruel. The polar opposite of Claire, she had zero interest in injectables and had long stopped covering her grays. Partial to slow-fashion clothing in shades called Woad and Black Cabbage, but when she made the effort, she—in Helen’s immortal words—looked “like a social worker who’s having an affair.” (Even though she worked in the legal profession.)
“Will you be working remotely?” Margaret asked.
I braced myself. “I’ve handed in my notice—”
As expected, uproar ensued.
“I can’t do that job any longer.” I needed them to forgive me. “Not for any money. I’m broken.”
“You need a rest and a reset,” Claire said. “Spend a little time in this country where the restaurants are pathetic and a funeral counts as a day out, where you have non-existent public transport and zero privacy.”
“Where there’s no opera—” Margaret said.
“—thank Jayzus,” Helen said.
“—or ballet—”
“—thank Jayzus again. I love Ireland.”
“You’re stressed,” Claire said. “Everyone is stressed. Look at Rachel there, holding the lives of addicts in her hands!”
Rachel, the middle sister, was the Convert—a good-time girl who went to the bad then returned to the good. Wise and clean-living—except when it came to expensive trainers—she worked as an addiction therapist.
“I’m more sad than stressed,” I said.
“But you’ve The Best Job In The World, tee emm!” Mum choked out. “I’ve lorded it over my sisters for years. Don’t take this away from me.”
“Sorry, Mum. In five months’ time, I’ll no longer work in beauty PR.”
“No more free stuff?” Helen sounded faint. “But this is… illegal . Imma get an injunction.”
“Instead of free skincare, you’ll have me around all the time! That’s so much better, right?”
Helen’s sour look made me laugh.
Rachel clicked into therapist mode. “Anna, has something happened? To make you blow your life up like this?”
“Not any one particular thing. But the pandemic made me re-evaluate everything.”
“Oh, the old ‘pandemic re-evaluation.’?” Claire was caustic. “It’s not real, just horsewallop that people say to sound superior.”
If Claire—the most zeitgeisty of us—hadn’t had a pandemic re-evaluation, it didn’t exist.
Even Rachel, who genuinely believed in personal growth, seemed unconvinced.
“It’s real,” I said. “I didn’t get to see any of you for, at one stage, eleven months . It was horrible—”
“We didn’t see you either,” Mum said. “And you don’t see us threatening to move to…to…” She turned to Helen. “Say some awful spot.”
“Castellucio.”
“Castellucio was beautiful!” Rachel said.
“If you like cutesy, pretty places,” Helen said. “It made me itchy.”
“She had to take antihistamines,” Mum said.
“I was afraid you might die,” I admitted.
“Who?” Mum looked around. “Helen? Margaret?”
“Well, anyone really. Covid was unpredictable. But I realized that you won’t be around forever.”
“Wh— Me? What do you mean I won’t be around forever? You cheeky pup!”
“Or Dad.”
“Him, yes, you’ve a point. He’s frail.”
“Am I?” Dad looked surprised. “Now you tell me.”
Margaret, as ever, was about practicalities. “Honestly, Anna, I can’t see Angelo Torres living in Ireland. He’s so ‘New York-y.’?”
I took a breath. “Angelo won’t be living in Ireland.”
“You see.” Mum was pleased and gloat-y. “Didn’t I—” At the same time as everyone else, the subtext hit her. “What? Have you—”
“—broken up with Angelo? Yes.”
Shock prevailed. “That’s terrible!”
Gasping for breath, Mum beseeched the five of us. “Will I ever get you all boxed away? Ever? At this stage, I’ll be on my deathbed, walking towards the pearly gates, the Man Above will have his arms out to welcome me and next thing one of you will pop in and tell me you’re after marrying a tree.” She buried her face in her hands.
“Cheating fucker,” Helen hissed. “Like all men. His brains are in his flute—”
“He didn’t cheat.”
Claire focused on me with interest. “So it was you ?”
“No one cheated.”
“He was a clown,” Helen declared. “With his”—she put on a goofy voice—“?‘spiritual way of life.’ I’m sorry we ever called him the Sexy Guru, the cheating prick.”
“He’s a wonderful man,” I snapped.
“Holy fuck,” Helen said. “Are you, like, mature now? Is that the way all your break-ups will be? ‘Going forward.’ ‘We’ll always be friends’…”
“Angelo was just that type.” Claire defended me. “There’s no other way to break up with him. He was perfect.”
In many ways, he was. Never controlling or manipulative, he received even the most outrageous suggestions calmly, instead of flying off the handle and yelling that this (whatever it was) was a load of bullshit (and he probably wouldn’t have said bullshit; he rarely swore).
“Lockdown.” I didn’t want to go into all the details here. “Living together full-time didn’t suit us.”
“I hope you’ve given up on sex forever,” Claire said. “Because the absolute state of any Irish man from twenty-two onwards. The baldness, the bellies, the boringness. Even I wouldn’t touch them and you know what I’m like.”
Courtesy of her testosterone gel, Claire said she thought about sex once every six seconds.
“At least in the US,” she said, “You have lumberjack silver foxes, with pierced ears and pierced dicks. Men who make the effort .”
“They’re more likely to have basements, though,” Mum said. “Terrible things go on in them. In Ireland there’s no basements. She’s safer here.”
“She’s seventy-three,” Helen said. “She can take care of herself.”
“What age are you?” Mum asked me.
“Seventy-three,” Helen repeated.
“Twenty-one,” I said. “Well, that’s what I feel today. But mid to late forties, if we’re going by the calendar year.”
“ If you were to relocate to Ireland?” Margaret asked me. “ Where would you live?”
“I am relocating to Ireland where eventually I’ll buy a place. I’ll need a temporary base for a while but I have two parents and four sisters, all with their own homes. I’ll be spoiled for choice.”
Claire’s home fairly hopped with activity. So did Helen’s, because in addition to Regan, her little girl, she had three stepchildren. Rachel’s was also busy, mostly because she and her ex-husband Luke never stopped having sex (long story but they were very happy). Margaret, though, hers was peaceful. No sex there. Dead from the neck down, she often said, and delighted about it.
“You can’t live with Helen.” Mum was quick. “Regan is possessed by demons. You’d be in danger. Demons are drawn to good girls like you.”
Regan was not possessed by demons but it made them so happy to say it, why deny them their pleasure?
“I see you’re all looking at me,” Claire said. “Because I’ve the biggest house. But I’m overrun with Gen Z offspring and their polyamorous capers. You’d be lucky to get a bed and even luckier if a selection of strangers didn’t join you in the middle of the night, looking for shenanigans.”
Of Claire and Adam’s four children, only one, Francesca, identified as “polyamorous.” But Claire never let the facts get in the way of a good story. It was the trait I liked best about her.
“Claire,” Mum asked, her voice sing-song, “how do you know someone’s polyamorous?”
“They tell you,” Claire said and they both laughed. This seemed to be a well-practised routine.
“Mum?” I asked. “Would you give me a bed?”
Her mouth moved convulsively. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “No, Anna. For a short while, if you were stuck. I was always fond of you, you’d nearly be my favorite, after Helen. But you’d be making me eat out-of-date yogurts and giving me food poisoning. At this time of my life I don’t want to be scolded. Or poisoned.”
“Of course you can live with us.” Dad was totally ignored.
“It’s me who scolds you about the yogurts,” Margaret said.
“There she goes again, trying to make out I’ve dementia so she can put me in a home.”
“You mad old fool,” Helen said. “ I’m the one trying to put you in a home, not Margaret there, who is good and decent .”
“You’re welcome to move in with Luke and me,” Rachel said.
“You won’t get a wink of sleep there,” Helen said. “The pair of them…Never not at it.”
All my money was on Margaret—and like the reliable woman she was, she said, “My spare room is yours for as long as you need it.”
God, she was the best.
“You’ll love it there.” Rachel became wistful. “Homemade cake in a tin. Wildflowers in a jam jar on your dressing table. Porridge made in an actual saucepan.”
“No Netflix, though.” This from Mum. “No Virgin River .”
“Thank fuck for that.” Helen, of course.
“I can pay for Netflix,” I said.
“How?” Margaret asked. “If you don’t mind me asking? Have you savings? Investments?”
A sore subject. After working like a machine all these years, I’d accumulated surprisingly little. “I’ll get a job.”
“WHAT!” Dad almost levitated. “You mean you’ve given in your notice without having another job to go to?”
“Get the defibrillator,” Mum yelled. “He’s having a stroke.”
We hadn’t a defibrillator and Dad wasn’t having a stroke—but he was profoundly distressed. “That’s the most IDIOTIC thing anyone has ever done.”
“We were wrong to say you weren’t a failure,” Mum said. “You were just hiding out in the long grass these last eighteen years. You deceived us.”
“I’ve spoken to lots of recruiters. I’ll definitely get a job.”
“Doing what?” Helen was suddenly breathless with hope. “Beauty PR? Right here in Dublin?”
“Not beauty. Something different.”
“Pivoting.” Claire was, once again, scornful. “You’re just ticking boxes here, Anna. Reassessing your life because of the pandemic? Tick! Ending a long-term relationship? Tick! Pivoting? Tick!”
“What’s pivoting?” Mum shifted anxiously. “It sounds like getting something pointy shoved up your bum-hole.”
“What are you thinking of pivoting to?” Claire asked.
The six of them were one big cluster of suspicion.
“I haven’t decided yet. But something gentler. Less stressful.”
“No one gets paid six figures to do something gentle,” Claire said.
“That’s okay with me.”
“Why would anyone give you a job doing not-beauty?” Helen asked. “You’ve no experience.”
“I’ve a lot. Managing projects, staff, budgets, expectations…You name it, I’ve managed it.”
“You’ve managed to break my heart.” Mum, who had become a sullen lump, suddenly spoke up. “You can add that to your list.”
“Will do. I need to leave for the airport now.”
“Don’t bother coming back,” Mum said.
“Who’s driving me?” I asked.
“None of us,” Helen said.
Grand. I got out my phone to call a taxi, then went to wait in the hall. That had gone about as well as I’d expected.