Chapter 24
24
BIG GIRLS DO CRY
‘It’s a release,’ Peggy assures me as I sniff and blubber my way through getting out of my wet swimsuit and into something warm and cosy. I am incredibly grateful at this moment for changing robes and the advances that have been made in beach apparel, which allow us to fully strip off, dry and dress, under the protection of a big super-warm coat.
‘It’s existing in its purest form. We don’t have the physical or mental capacity to carry the weight of our worries when our body is in survival mode. All our energy goes into controlling our breathing and our body temperature. The tension we are carrying on our shoulders – and us women carry a lot of tension – slides away even if just temporarily. That release can be powerful,’ Peggy says, sagely.
I wonder how she knows this stuff. Who taught her? Is there a school for being a cool and chill human being? Whatever, she seems to have this Bean Feasa thing down pat. She’s definitely not being forced to wipe her nose and dry her eyes on the edge of a towel anyway.
‘It’s incredible,’ Laura says. ‘I wasn’t convinced to start with, but you know, sometimes you need to go down before you come back up, so I thought it was worth a shot. But I didn’t expect it to be that good.’
Peggy smiles warmly at her. ‘I’m so happy you got something positive from it.’
‘You’ve no idea. That’s the first time I have felt a sense of peace – proper peace – since my mum died. Probably even since before she got really sick. I felt as if I could breathe again.’
Laura doesn’t cry as she says this, even though her words unleash a fresh torrent of tears from me. Instead she just seems happy. Younger even. It warms my heart.
‘And what about you, Niamh?’ Peggy asks. ‘How did you find it?’
Niamh has already started to change into warm, dry clothes.
‘Yeah, it was… well, it was an experience anyway.’ There’s about as much enthusiasm in her voice as there would be if she was next in the queue for a cervical smear test.
‘Right, everyone, back to the meeting house for breakfast! Yoga with Eimear is in just over an hour!’ Peggy calls, just as my stomach rumbles. I’d grabbed a banana first thing but it had done little to satiate my hunger. I was more than ready for breakfast.
‘I’m ravenous,’ Laura says. ‘You’ll have to stop me going full Cookie Monster with the croissants.’
‘Bear in mind that yoga is next,’ Niamh says. ‘You might want to go easy on the heavy carbs. And most definitely no beans.’
Oh, God, I think. We’re about to enter a room where twenty women, who have just been fed and had their morning coffee, are going to twist and stretch their bodies in ways that are guaranteed to get their guts rumbling.
* * *
It seems like we needn’t have worried too much. The breakfast on offer was not a smorgasbord of flaky pastry delights, hot buttered toast or even a full Irish. Breakfast was, as declared on a whiteboard just inside the meeting house, a ‘Refreshing and Detoxifying Super Smoothie, with Chia Seeds and Collagen Powder’. Someone had drawn smiley faces and flowers around the words in what I can only imagine was an attempt to soften the blow.
My stomach plunged. I knew before I even saw it that this was going to look, at best, like green sludge. It was likely to taste like green sludge too. I could feel Niamh tense up further beside me.
‘Well… this will be interesting,’ Laura says. ‘At least we’ll be filling our bodies with good, nourishing food.’
Personally I’d rather be filling my body with pain au chocolat, but I don’t say a word – too concerned about what Niamh’s response will be.
‘Come on, girls,’ she says after a pause. ‘We might as well get this over and done with. I’m sure it won’t be too bad.’ I’d like to believe she means it, but there is a dullness to her voice that gives away her true feelings.
We sit down and Laura goes to very helpfully fetch our slop, leaving Niamh and me alone.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask her, knowing that it is a stupid question. The woman is very clearly not okay.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I’m just being a crabbit witch. It was a long week at school.’
‘You want to talk about it?’ I say, but she shakes her head immediately.
‘Absolutely not. I’m here to get away from it all. Look, I’m sorry about yesterday. About last night. I handed my phone in while you and Laura were on the beach.’
I had wondered why I’d not seen her scrolling, but never thought for a moment she had caved and handed it over. Still, I grab on to her apology in the hope we can make the most of the rest of the weekend. Sludge and all.
‘I really appreciate you coming this weekend,’ I tell her. ‘I didn’t know they would take our phones. Or that this would be our breakfast.’ I spot Laura walking towards us with three tall glasses of something absolutely putrid-looking.
‘It’s a bit lumpy,’ she says, as she sits down. ‘I’d not use the straw if I were you. Mine is already clogged up.’
‘Pretty sure the doctor can give you a tablet for that,’ Niamh deadpans, and I snort, before staring at my drink suspiciously.
‘I think we need to bring the big guns out,’ Niamh says. ‘Picture the scene. Derry, 1997. Henry J’s cocktail bar. Your fifth pina colada of the night. It tastes like death but by God, you paid a fiver for it and you’re going to get a fiver’s worth out of it. Pinch your nose and down that bad boy.’
‘Muskehounds style.’
Truth be told, I’m more scared of drinking this than I was of walking into the sea, and that’s saying something. We glance at each other before Laura starts counting back from five and before I think about it too much more, I’m trying very much not to think about the texture and taste of this super-healthy vom-in-a-glass.
The silence that follows is deafening. We are, each of us, stunned by the sheer disgustingness of what we’ve just consumed. If the others are anything like me, they will also be trying very, very hard not to bring the contents of their stomach back up.
Eventually, Laura speaks. ‘I don’t think I have ever tasted anything as disgusting in my entire life. And Kitty told me I ate a slug when I was two. I’d put money on it still being nicer than that.’
‘I’d take scrambled slug over that any day of the week,’ Niamh says, and I feel my stomach start to turn.
‘Please. Please. Let’s change the subject. Anything. Anything at all,’ I say, fighting to stop myself from being sick.
‘Okay,’ Laura says. ‘I’m proud of us for doing this. This is exactly the kind of thing our sixteen-year-old selves would have wanted us to do. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway, etc.’
She’s right, of course. ‘Exactly!’ I say.
‘Hmmm,’ Niamh says. ‘I think sixteen-year-old me knew absolutely nothing. She certainly never thought about all the responsibilities we’d have on our shoulders when we reached this age. I think I’m too busy keeping the life I have afloat to be off chasing the dreams of a teenager. I’ve my yoga and that’ll have to do me for now. Things have changed these past few weeks, Laura.’
She sounds so defeated that I’m not entirely sure what to say. Maybe she has a point. It was very easy to make all these promises to ourselves before the big baby bombshell hit. I feel my mood sink too – or maybe my body is just extremely sad that I made it consume the sludge. ‘She has a point,’ I say.
‘My God, you two, you’re going to be grannies. You’re not dying. Your life isn’t ending,’ Laura protests. ‘So we will have none of this defeatist nonsense. The situation doesn’t have to change anything.’
‘I beg to disagree.’ Niamh sits up and leans forward. ‘It changes everything. It’s a whole mindset. Being someone’s granny. Being married, in my case anyway, to someone’s grandad. It just feels different. Even outside of the responsibility of it all.’
Laura shakes her head. ‘But it doesn’t have to change everything. It didn’t for Kitty. She loved it. Every minute. She said she enjoyed Robyn being wee more than she did me and Conal. She was old enough to appreciate how fleeting those early years are, so she packed them with fun and love. But at the end of the day she was more than happy to hand my baby back to me and go on about her business. In those last years… before she got really sick, she packed in so much living. She even got a tattoo. And went on a few dates. Joined a salsa class. Bought far too many pairs of high heels, and enough handbags to sink a ship. She fell in love with herself.’
I can’t believe that I did not know this about Kitty. Of course, I’d known she was always so very full of life and joy. But this? This version of Kitty was next level. I would’ve loved to have known this super-improved version of the woman I had loved and admired most of my life anyway.
Laura leans forward a little. ‘Do you know what she called herself? Once, when she was half-cut on cocktails after we went out for a lunch that went on a little too long?’
My curiosity is piqued.
‘Tell me,’ Niamh says.
‘A GILF ,’ Laura says in a stage whisper, her face colouring as she breaks into a wide smile.
‘What’s a GILF ?’ I ask. ‘I mean, I know MILF, and DILF even, but GILF?’ As I speak it clicks into place, my hand flies to my mouth, and my eyes widen with the realisation.
‘Granny I’d Like to, you know… Fu…’ Laura can’t bring her to say the full word but just creases into giggles.
‘Go on, Kitty! You absolute legend!’ Niamh says, roaring with laughter loudly enough that we get a few strange looks from some of the other women. ‘Oh, ladies, you’d be roaring laughing too if you knew this story!’ she tells them before turning her attention back to us. ‘I might start using that one myself. I imagine it would suitably horrify Jodie, and Paul for that matter. What about you, Becca? Are you going to go full GILF ?’
I pause for a second to think. ‘No. No. I don’t think so. I’m going to stick with becoming an iceberg.’
She furrows her brow and looks at me, confused.
‘Attagirl,’ Laura says. ‘Sure, that’s almost the same thing.’
‘Girls, did that cold water go to your brains? Or do either of you want to explain what on earth you’re on about?’
At least, I think, at least Niamh is laughing again.