9. Melanie
Melanie sat beside Frank, listening to his voice go on and on, and tried not to scream.
‘… Janis and Joni are incredible girls. They have a lot of energy. It just needs to be channelled correctly. Perhaps if they were allowed more time to be creative, they’d talk less in class?’
Mr Grogan, the year head, smiled tightly. He looked less than impressed at Frank’s description of the twins. ‘The thing is, Mr Fitzroy –’
‘Call me, Frank, please, we’re all friends here.’
Melanie grimaced. Jesus, would he ever shut up?
‘Frank, the twins are being very disruptive in religion class, in particular. They are tormenting the young teacher, who is finding it difficult to cope.’
‘Tormenting is a very strong word. We need to use words carefully. They can be misleading. I’ve always encouraged the girls to question things. Mark Van Doren said that “The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.” I want the girls to be open-minded and curious.’
Oh, bloody hell, not the quotes. Here’s a quote for you, Frank: Shut the hell up, listen, nod and let’s get out of here.
Melanie sat on her hands and tried to practise Frank’s breathing technique, but it was not working, not remotely: she still wanted to punch her husband.
Mr Grogan cleared his throat. ‘Very nice. Let me rephrase my point for you. Your daughters are causing the teacher problems. The reason I called you in this evening is because yesterday, when Mr Hagan asked the class to –’ Mr Grogan looked down at his notes – ‘ Select a sacred space in Ireland that is important for people belonging to one of the major world religions , Joni said, “Bershka, because it has the best and cheapest clothes in Dublin and therefore is a place to be worshipped.” When Janis was asked to Give one reason why a non-religious person might go on a religious pilgrimage , she replied, “Because they have no friends and no life.”’
Frank chuckled. ‘Ah, come on, that’s funny. They’re just expressing their humorous side.’
Melanie was mortified. The twins sounded shallow and entitled.
Mr Grogan was not amused. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Fitzroy, this is not what we expect from our students. The twins are constantly disruptive in religion class.’
‘Maybe the teacher should be firmer with them,’ Melanie suggested. ‘He has our full permission to clamp down on their messing.’ Surely the teacher should just give them extra homework, or detention, and that would soften their cough.
Frank tapped his fingers together. ‘Hold on now, Melanie.’ Turning back to the year head, he said, ‘The thing is, we don’t believe in organized religion in our house.
We believe in spirituality. We want the girls to grow up knowing they are free to express themselves, to examine everything and make up their own minds as to how they feel about what they are being told or taught. ’
They’d never get out of here if he didn’t shut the hell up.
‘They’re not questioning or examining things, Frank,’ Melanie snapped. ‘They’re being cheeky and winding up this poor young teacher. It’s not right.’
‘They’re just being teenagers, Melanie.’
‘They’re being brats, Frank. We’re not paying these expensive school fees for the girls to mess about and behave like brats.’
‘We’re not raising robots, Melanie. We’re raising individuals with minds of their own and the freedom to say what they want.’
‘Sometimes in life you need to just shut up, listen and behave.’ Melanie had had enough. She was too busy for this nonsense. The twins were a handful. They needed to bloody well toe the line in school and stop causing trouble.
Mr Grogan cleared his throat. ‘Perhaps you could both have a word with the girls about their behaviour in class, and from our end we’ll encourage them to participate but in a constructive manner.’
‘We’ll talk to them, but we won’t be curtailing their lively spirits. That is who they are and what makes them unique.’
They need to be bloody well reined in and their wings clipped, Melanie thought.
‘I will make sure the girls know how disappointed we are and promise you they will not be disrupting the class any further.’ Melanie knew exactly how to get the twins to behave. You just took away their phones. They would walk through a burning building for those phones.
She glanced at her watch. Damn, she had a Zoom with the US in twenty minutes. She stood up, shook Mr Grogan’s hand and headed for the door.
In the car, Melanie typed an email while Frank played some new band he was obsessed with.
‘Can you please turn that down?’ she asked.
‘Okay.’
Melanie pressed send. ‘Frank, we do need to rein the twins in.’
‘They’re not horses, Melanie.’
‘I know that, but they’re becoming harder to control and we need to nip it in the bud before they get into real trouble.’
‘All teenagers push boundaries. It’s their job. Our girls are fantastic young women, and I’m proud that they have their own minds.’
‘Cheekiness is not showing that you have your own mind. It’s being a pain in the arse.’
‘The answers were funny. They were being sarcastic, not cheeky. Katie was telling me the other night at the gig that she was a bit wild in her teenage years, pushing boundaries and getting into mischief, and look how well she turned out.’
As much as Melanie liked her sister-in-law, Katie was not a shining example of success in life.
Katie worked part-time as a hairdresser, which was not a career aspiration Melanie had for her twins.
She also, in Melanie’s opinion, drank too much and was a bit immature.
Like Frank, Katie seemed to think life was a party.
To be honest, Melanie didn’t have much in common with Katie.
If she wasn’t her sister-in-law, she doubted they’d ever have crossed paths.
Melanie sighed. She needed Frank to step up and be onside with disciplining the twins. If they didn’t clamp down on them, the girls would probably end up getting expelled.
‘Frank, we have sent them to a very good school and they have to abide by the rules and play the game. They can say and do whatever they want in three years’ time when they go to university.’
‘I told you St Katherine’s was too conventional. We should have sent them to People’s Grange.’
Not this again. Frank had wanted to send the girls to some bullshit school where rich, entitled kids or kids who had been expelled from other schools went.
The pupils decided what they wanted to study, when they wanted to study and where they wanted to go on school trips.
Melanie had put her foot down and point-blank refused, and although Frank had finally relented, he’d never really let it go.
Melanie would have given her right arm to go to a school like St Katherine’s.
When she was growing up, she’d envied the girls who went to private schools.
They seemed so confident, bright and sure of themselves and where they were going in life.
They always had the best teachers and the best sports facilities.
It infuriated Melanie that the twins didn’t appreciate the exclusive education they were getting – and that she was paying for.
‘Frank, the girls need discipline and boundaries – all kids do. I want them to do well in school, go to university, get good degrees and good jobs.’
‘Life is not all about study and work, Melanie. People need to figure out who they are and what makes them tick. They may not want to go to college. They may want to travel the world, and that’s as beneficial as any degree.
Life throws you curve balls. After the accident I didn’t go to college.
I travelled. It opened my eyes and my mind and helped me heal. ’
For the love of Jesus! It also allowed you to check out of real life. Your mother supported you, and now your wife pays the bills. It’s all very well being in touch with your inner child but it’s not going to pay the bloody mortgage.
Melanie forced her voice to stay low and calm.
‘Frank, I want the girls to be independent financially so they can always look after themselves. That requires hard work. I understand you want to encourage their creative and spiritual side, but we have to make them see that they cannot waste a good education and they need to knuckle down.’
‘I disagree. Their mental health is more important than anything else. That needs to be our main focus. They are happy, confident kids, and I want to nurture that. The car crash almost pushed me over the edge, but I got through it with therapy and travel. The twins’ happiness is my only priority.’
The twins were too bloody confident. A bit of humility wouldn’t go amiss.
And life wasn’t only about happiness, she wanted to scream.
It was about reality and hard work and paying bills and grafting and dealing with difficult clients and colleagues.
She knew Frank had had to deal with a lot at a young age, but she felt that in a way it had stunted his growth.
Frank was still, essentially, an eighteen-year-old boy.
The trauma of the crash and his subsequent journey to healing – paid for and aided by Nancy – had stopped him growing up.
Frank had spent the years between eighteen and twenty-five in therapy, travelling the world and meditating on mountains at sunrise.
Nancy had indulged his every whim because she was so full of guilt.
Melanie, on the other hand, had grown up in a strict family that valued education over everything.
If she had put even a toe out of place, her parents would have come down on her like a ton of bricks.
Money was tight and she’d always known she would be on her own financially, which had given her drive and focus, something the twins lacked.
She had to keep them on track. She would not raise spoilt smartarses.
But she always had to play the bad cop to Frank’s good cop and it was becoming exhausting.
‘Happiness is important, Frank, but children also need boundaries. They need to focus more on their schoolwork and less on messing about.’
‘They’ll certainly get focus from you. You never stop working. It’s not good for you, Melanie. You need to switch off from work more.’
Like you, Frank? Like the way you work part-time? I don’t have that luxury because if I take time off I’ll be fired. I’m not a blood relative. I’m an in-law. I’m disposable .
Melanie sighed and decided not to reply.
When they got home, the twins were sprawled on the sofa, cuddled under their fleecy blankets, orange for Joni and green for Janis, watching Grey’s Anatomy . They barely looked up when their parents came in.
‘Hey, what’s going on with Dr Dreamy?’ Frank squeezed himself between them.
They complained about him sitting on their blankets, then scooched over to give him space, placing their feet on his lap.
‘Can you turn that off, please?’ Melanie asked.
‘No, it’s a really good episode,’ Joni said.
‘There’s only ten minutes left,’ Janis told her.
Melanie picked up the remote and turned off the TV.
‘ Muuuum! ’ The twins were outraged.
‘Come on, Melanie, let them finish the episode,’ Frank said.
Melanie stood in front of them all. ‘Are you interested to know what Mr Grogan said to us?’
The twins crossed their arms defensively.
‘Go on, then,’ Janis said.
‘Here we go,’ Joni muttered.
Melanie summed up the conversation. The twins sniggered when she repeated their sassy answers. Frank joined in, like he was their pal, not their father.
Melanie tried not to let her irritation show. ‘I’m taking your phones for one week.’
The twins gasped. ‘What?’
She had their attention now.
‘Daaaaaaad?’
Don’t contradict me, please, Frank. For once in your goddamn life do not contradict me.
‘Ah, now, Melanie. Their phones are how they communicate with their friends. We can’t take that away for a whole week.’
‘Frank.’ Melanie glared at him.
Frank raised his hands. ‘Look, girls, I love that you have strong spirits and minds, but the religion teacher is only doing his best and it would be nice if you’d support him and show him some consideration.
Try to give him answers that are more suitable for the curriculum.
Maybe you could save the funny stuff for your friends. ’
‘Is that it?’ Melanie was furious. ‘Is that the extent of your response to us being called up to the school and told our daughters are misbehaving and disrespectful?’
Joni snuggled into her father’s shoulder. ‘Dad understands us, Mum. He knows how to talk to us. You just shout and go back to work. Taking our phones isn’t going to change anything. It’ll just make us really angry and we’ll act out more. Dad gets it.’
‘How would you feel if we took your phone?’ Janis said. ‘The real phone addict in this house is you.’
‘That’s true.’ Frank nodded in agreement.
‘One hundred per cent, you are always on your phone,’ Joni added.
Melanie’s blood pressure boiled over. She’d had it with all of them. ‘I use my phone for work, so I can pay all the bills and your school fees, not to arse around on TikTok and Snapchat following vacuous “influencers” and taking stupid selfies,’ she roared.
‘Oooh, I think we hit a nerve.’ Joni smirked.
‘Bit defensive there, Mum.’ Janis chuckled.
Melanie wondered if other mothers had the urge to slap their teenagers as often as she did.
‘Ah, now, your mum has a point. She only uses her phone for work. I do wish you’d take more breaks from it, though, Melanie,’ Frank said.
‘You should chill out more and be fun, like Auntie Katie,’ Joni said.
‘She certainly knows how to party.’ Frank laughed. ‘She’s a great person to go to a gig with.’
Good old Katie, fun, fun, fun. She didn’t have the pressure Melanie had. Jamie was reliable and brought home a good salary. Yes, Katie worked, but only three days a week. Melanie had a full-time, full-on job – and she was the breadwinner here. How dare they compare her negatively to Katie?
‘Well, maybe you should all move in with fun Auntie Katie, then!’ Melanie stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
She knew she was being childish, and a bad role model, but it stung.
It stung that no one ever said, ‘Thanks for working so hard. Thanks for earning good money so we don’t have to worry and can go to the best school.
Thanks for working ten times harder than Dad so he can faff about with his music friends while you actually sign and nurture successful authors.
Thanks for putting up with a domineering mother-in-law so things run smoothly in the family business.
’ One bloody thank-you in a decade would be great.