Chapter 23
23
EMbrACE THE FULL brIEF
Taking my mother and Mrs Bishop around a supermarket three weeks before Christmas reminds me greatly of what it was like to take the boys out when they were wee and totally feral. Both women went straight for the big trollies after plotting their plan of action on the drive up from Derry to the border town of Strabane. Niamh was very impressed. ‘I thought older people liked to take their time and have a dodder about the place,’ she said. ‘Those two are something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped on some camo gear to go full guerrilla operation.’
‘I’m not sure camo gear would blend in with the sparkles and bright colours of the Asda women’s wear department,’ I say. ‘Otherwise, I’d agree with you.’
My mother is a creature of habit. Each year, even though we are both almost fifty, she insists on buying new pyjamas and socks for Ruairi and me. She also buys new pyjamas for my twins and for Ruairi’s two girls. This is a tradition that cannot be broken, not even when I tell her the boys aren’t really big into pyjamas and are more likely to sleep in their jocks and a T-shirt than anything. ‘And if there was a fire, would they run out into the street in their pants?’ she argues. ‘I think not. So a decent pair of pyjamas they can wear in an emergency is a good thing to have. And what if they had to go into hospital? Sure, you wouldn’t want to be scrambling round trying to buy them pyjamas then. No, Rebecca. I have bought them pyjamas every year since their first Christmas and I am not about to stop now. Let me do things my way!’
So I do. I watch as she enters the store, goes straight for the escalator to the first floor and starts throwing pyjamas into her trolley as if she’s on Supermarket Sweep while Mrs Bishop is zooming up and down the aisles like a demon selecting an array of Christmas jumpers, socks and pants. I didn’t know Mrs Bishop could move that fast.
Meanwhile Niamh and I are standing beside the children’s clothes while she tries to pick out some new bits and bobs for Fiadh – aka the fussiest child in the world – while my dying ovaries are having one last gasp of longing at the sight of the teeny tiny onesies declaring it is ‘Baby’s First Christmas’. I think of my boys – both of them standing at over six feet tall, hairy and beardy with deep voices and size-twelve feet and I marvel that they ever fitted into a onesie in their lives. It’s even madder that at one time they both existed in my uterus together. And now look at them, with their men-feet and their chest hair. I’d give my right ovary – not that it would be much use to anyone at this stage – to be able to spend just ten minutes with them as the wee boys they used to be. I know I was permanently exhausted and my house looked at all times as if it had just been carpet-bombed but oof, the feel of their wee chubby, often sticky, hands on my face or holding my hand. It made me feel like the most important person in the world.
‘Rebecca, should I get you a 14-16 or an 18-20?’ my mother hollers loud enough that I can hear her over the Christmas croonings of my one true love, Mr Michael Bublé, on the shop’s speaker system.
I feel a sea of eyes turn in my direction and run their way up and down my figure, all asking themselves the same question my mother has just asked me and I want to crawl inside my own body and die. This brings back a very vivid memory of her announcing to both my father and my brother that I was ‘a woman now’ when I got my first period circa 1989. In those days, in our part of the world, a period was talked about then as if it were some giant, dirty secret and it was a fate worse than death for a boy to find out you were bleeding out of your vagina . That my mother relayed this news to my father and my one-year-older-than-me brother over our evening meal of potato waffles and Turkey Jetters – with a side salad because we weren’t heathens – was utterly mortifying. Almost as mortifying as my mother announcing what size she thought I might be in Asda, even if anyone with eyes could probably have a fair guess at it without being prompted. As I hurry across the shop floor to tell her that the 14-16 would probably be okay, but maybe just go with the 18-20 for extra comfort, I wonder if matricide is always morally reprehensible.
‘Mum!’ I hiss. ‘Do you have to announce my size to the whole shop?’
‘Everyone is too busy worrying about their own problems to worry about what size of pyjamas a stranger in a shop is wearing,’ she says. I really hope that’s true.
‘You shouldn’t let what other people think annoy you,’ she adds. ‘You’re perfect the way you are. Now tell me this, if I’m getting you some new underwear would you like a full brief this time? They are so comfy and easy on the old menopausal tummy.’
I know she is trying to be lovely and supportive and I don’t want to be cross at her so I agree to get the big knickers and resolve to order myself something a little more alluring from Marks and Spencer when we get home. If I am going to enter the dating arena, I’ll need something sexier than a full cotton belly-warming brief.
My humiliation complete for one morning, I saunter back to Niamh who has adopted a one-of-everything approach for Fiadh.
‘I figure if I buy it all, she can choose herself and I can return whatever she doesn’t like. It just makes it easier. I’m going to pick up some toys for her Christmas presents too,’ she says. ‘Is it okay if I leave those in your house so madam doesn’t find them? I think we’ve only one or two Santa years left and I don’t want to risk getting discovered.’
‘Of course,’ I tell her.
‘I don’t know what I’ll do when we’ve no Santa to worry about any more,’ Niamh says, a little misty-eyed. ‘It will feel like the proper end of an era. Why is everything speeding up so fast just now? The years just fly in.’
In the background, Michael Bublé is singing ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ – a song that reduces me to a mess at the best of times – and I’m watching my best friend get emotional. And Niamh Cassidy never gets emotional. Not the sad kind anyway. She’s famed for her ability to laugh in the face of adversity and not let the times life has served her a shite sandwich get her down. I both admire her and fear her because of it. In my darkest moments I’ve wondered if she is some kind of sociopath. I mean, she has never ever cried at Grey’s Anatomy . Not even the 007 scene at the end of series five.
I watch as she glances down at her trolley, filled with clothes that seem aimed at the tween market as opposed to the cutesy little girl market. There are no pretty party dresses or traditional tartan smocks. It’s skinny jeans, slogan sweaters and a pair of high-tops.
‘Our baby is growing up,’ I say, tears pricking at my own eyes. Fiadh, being the very unexpected surprise that she was, has felt a little like our communal child these last seven years and I have revelled in her childhood in a way I didn’t have the patience for when the twins were young.
‘You don’t expect it to go so fast,’ she says. ‘Even when it feels interminable, and you want to swing for every single fucker who tells you childhood goes by in the flash of an eye. But it really does go so fast.’
I reach out to give her a consoling hug but in a moment she seems to switch back to Niamh mode and shake off her tearfulness.
‘Oh my God,’ I tell her. ‘You’ve just had an Unexpected Wave of Sadness!’
‘A what?’ she asks. ‘Wise up. I’m not sad. I’m fine. Just fine. There’s no wave of anything. Just a moment which was perfectly justifiable and understandable given that I’ve just put a top with the slogan “ Sassy ” on it in my trolley for my seven-year-old. But it’s done. I’m fine. Now let’s go to the toys and see if they have the Bluetooth karaoke mic she has my heart broken asking for. And before you say anything else, you will be coming over on Boxing Day so she can perform the entire set list from Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour for your listening pleasure.’
‘I don’t mind,’ I say. ‘As long as she lets me join in to “Cruel Summer”.’
‘I’ve already told her that you and I will be her backing singers. She didn’t take that news well.’
With that, Niamh marches off towards the toy section. I can hear my mother shout, ‘Rebecca, would you like a thermal vest?’ as I add worry about Niamh to my to-do list. Something is not right in her world and it’s not just Fiadh getting older. I know Niamh, and this is something more than that.