Chapter 7
7
HOLY CANDLE IN THE WIND
I hate funerals. Every last second of them. I hate how performative they are, the formality a stark contrast to the friendly welcome of the wake.
I know they are by their very nature sad and solemn affairs, but when I think of Kitty, I don’t think of the woman the priest on the altar describes. He calls her ‘a faithful servant of the Lord’ more than once. He doesn’t mention her grandchildren. He doesn’t mention that she had a singing voice that gave the lucky listener goosebumps. He doesn’t mention that she was the worst baker known to man and there was many a birthday cake left untouched by even the bravest of children because we all knew about the one time everyone who ate her cake got ‘the scoots’. He doesn’t mention her beauty, or her sense of style. He doesn’t even mention her joie de vivre .
It rattles me and without realising, I find myself muttering out loud that the priest hasn’t the first notion what Kitty was like and he is a sour-faced old fucker anyway, which gets me a bad look from an old woman with a face like a slapped arse sitting in the row in front. I want to stick my tongue out at her but I don’t. I will remain respectful. Niamh takes my hand in hers. I assume it’s a sign of comfort or affection, but maybe she’s just afraid I’ll flip the bad-look-giver the finger. She knows how funerals wind me up.
‘I’m not going to say anything,’ I whisper, but in my head I play out a scenario where I storm to the front of the chapel and address the congregation on how women, especially this woman, deserve more. I play out imaginary scenarios like this a lot in my head. More so in recent times as the Unexpected Waves of Sadness have become more frequent along with their counterpart: Unexpected Waves of Rage. My doctor thinks it might be hormonal. She urged me to consider HRT. I’ve told her it’s not because of my hormones, it’s just that I’ve had enough of women getting a raw deal and I don’t want to keep quiet about it any more.
She nodded sympathetically and handed me a leaflet on perimenopause and HRT as I left. It’s still at the bottom of my handbag, along with a crumpled tissue, a fuzzy Polo mint and an indiscernible number of wrinkled poo bags.
At least, I think, the rage is stopping me from feeling profoundly sad. I don’t want to let that particular feeling in just now because I fear if I start crying, I might not stop for a long time. Rage is safer.
Laura looks wretched as she follows the coffin out of the church towards Kitty O’Hagan’s final resting place. Exhausted and drawn, her pale face is particularly stark against the black of her dress and coat. Aidan, her husband, is holding her hand and the hand of their only child, Robyn. I’ve not seen Robyn outside of pictures since she was six years old and I’m struggling to reconcile the image in my head of the joyful bundle of life I remember with the solemn-faced emo holding her dad’s hand. She is wearing thick, clumpy army boots, a coat that looks as if it’s been through a shredder and long, black fingerless gloves, perfect for showing off her black nail polish. Even in her grief she looks assured and sure of herself. Kitty must have bloody adored her. I bloody adore her and wish I had been as cool as she is when I was sixteen. Instead, I was making time capsules and learning Kylie Minogue raps.
‘Are we going to the cemetery too?’ Niamh asks when the Mass is over. I nod because it feels like the right thing to do. Even though I really don’t want to. The memories of my father’s funeral and burial are starting to come at me thick and fast but as usual, I push them down. We start to shuffle our way out of the pew to follow the procession of mourners when Simon appears in the aisle, waiting for us.
‘Close family and friends are invited to The Bishop’s Gate for lunch after the burial,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you’d be more than welcome if you want to come along.’
Niamh and I look at each other. That feels like an invitation too far given our prolonged estrangement. ‘I think we might catch up with Laura another time,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t need to be worrying about us.’
He shrugs, his badly fitting suit bunching up and giving him the look of an eighties’ throwback, and walks off.
‘Does his jacket have shoulder pads?’ Niamh whispers, eyes wide, and the thing is, I’m pretty sure it does. How did this man ever not give me the ick?
I’m feeling quite sombre when I get home. I make sure to call my mother and tell her I love her. She’s immediately suspicious but I assure her I’m not looking for anything except to tell her I love her. For a moment I think that makes her even more suspicious until she remembers that Laura’s mum has just been buried. She tells me she loves me too and that I’m to look after myself. I promise I will before changing out of my mourning clothes into leggings and an oversized hoodie that is in danger of becoming ordinary sized due to my fondness of biscuits.
Daniel looks at me longingly and so I slip on my trainers, my puffa coat and my knitted beanie hat and grab his lead. ‘You win, fellah,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s go walkies.’ He reacts with such joyous enthusiasm that I can’t help but feel my spirits lift.
So we walk around the Culmore Country Park four times, not even taking a shortcut when the heavens open and the rain starts to fall in sheets, drenching us both from head to toe. I walk until I’m tired, the light is starting to fade and Daniel is regretting his enthusiasm for walks, and then we go home. I stick the heating on, dry Daniel off, strip out of my outer clothes and escape upstairs to run myself a deep, hot bubble bath.
I even go to the effort of gathering and lighting some candles and pouring myself a glass of wine before I strip out of my remaining saturated clothes and slip under the suds. It’s not quite giving the luxurious spa vibe I would’ve liked. The collection of candles is a bit eclectic to say the least – including one designed to clear cooking smells, three tea-lights, the dregs of a Yankee Candle, and a holy candle with Our Lady printed on the outside which my mother brought me back from the shrine at Knock in County Mayo. But if I just focus on the cosy glow they give off then it works. My wine is cold and delicious and the warmth of the water is bringing life back to my frozen toes. I close my eyes and rest my head back, grateful that the boys are grown and gone and long past the stage of automatically needing a poo every single time I dared to try and relax in the bath. Yes, I miss my babies. No, I do not miss my babies’ refusal to give me any peace and quiet.
The tension is just leaving my body when I hear my doorbell ring. No. No, I am not getting out of the bath and schlepping it downstairs wrapped in Saul’s old dressing gown only to find someone looking to talk to me about Jesus or sell me something. I choose to ignore it, hoping against hope that whoever it is will get the message and clear off.
They don’t, but instead ring the doorbell for a second time, which only prompts Daniel to burst into the song of his people and bark as loudly as his little doggy lungs will permit. The tension that had started to leave my body does an immediate about turn and crawls under my skin and into my very bones with remarkable efficacy.
When the doorbell rings a third time, followed by a loud rattle of my letterbox and a shout of, ‘We know you’re in there!’ I give up the ghost and haul myself out of the bath.
I recognise the voice from my letterbox, of course. What I don’t know is why she’s at my front door right now. And why she has used the word ‘we’.
‘I’m coming!’ I shout, pulling on the dressing gown and slipping my feet into my incredibly non-sexy but very comfortable fur-lined Crocs (let’s start a campaign to normalise comfortable footwear, please!).
‘Hurry up! It’s throwing it down out here!’ Niamh calls. Or at least I think that’s what she shouts. Daniel has moved on to the next song in his back catalogue and is howling and scrabbling at the front door. I wonder if I could actually train him to answer it for me?
Flustered, sweating and deeply uncomfortable about answering the door with nothing hiding my vagina except for an old dressing gown that could possibly get caught in a draught, I make my way downstairs. Daniel dances around my feet, showing way too much excitement for a dog who’s just finished a substantial walk, and I have to shoo him away before opening the door.
The ‘we’, it turns out, is Niamh and Laura – the latter of the two still dressed in her black dress and coat, her face streaked with mascara and one hand holding aloft a bottle of peach schnapps. My stomach lurches at the very sight of it, remembering many a hangover born from peach-flavoured over-indulgence.
‘For old times’ sake,’ she says, with a hiccup. ‘It’s what Mammy would’ve wanted.’ Laura staggers through my front door, and wraps herself around me in a hug. Over her shoulder I see Niamh mouthing, ‘I’m sorry!’ before adopting her very best teacher voice. ‘Laura arrived at my house, very upset and said she needed her girls to get her through this evening and that nobody else could understand how much she was hurting.’
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ Laura sobbed into my shoulder. ‘I really let you down, and I’m sorry. Forgive me please,’ she cried.
‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ I say, tears springing to my own eyes. ‘And of course we’ll be there for you to help you through this. Can I just put some knickers on first?’