Chapter 5
Moira pushed the guesthouse door open to see a woman standing there with a suitcase by her side.
She was already late for college, so, smiling hello, she breezed past her and out onto the busy pavement, oblivious to the occasional head turn from fellow pedestrians.
They were tourists for the most part who’d stare after her, convinced they’d just had a brush with a celebrity, murmuring, ‘I’m telling you, it’s her.
It’s your dark-haired singer from The Corrs.
’ Swiftly followed by, ‘No, it’s Demi Whatsit on her holidays. ’
Moira was used to the confusion, but the sad truth of the matter was she could neither sing nor act.
The only musical talent in the O’Mara gene pool was Kiera, who was showing grand drumming potential on the pots and pans.
Mammy was adamant Kiera got her talent from her, but that was debatable.
It was grand having Mammy and Donal home, though.
Moira was embracing being able to telephone her mammy whenever she wanted.
Look at last night.
She’d rung her to tell her she’d had beans on toast for tea because Tom was pulling a shift at Quinn’s bistro and she couldn’t be arsed cooking anything. Aisling wasn’t impressed and, later on, Moira wasn’t impressed either because, sitting on the sofa next to her sister, the beans did their worst.
Moira also embraced double standards. It was fine and dandy for her to call her mammy at the drop of a hat.
That’s what mammies were for, after all.
However, Mammy and her mobile phone, which meant she could ring her daughters anywhere, anytime, was a mixed blessing.
Right now, it was a blessing and, digging her Nokia out of her pocket, Moira bashed out the number she knew better than her own.
‘Mammy, it’s me, Moira.’
‘How’re you, Moira?’ Maureen trilled down the phone as Pooh sauntered along by her side. ‘Isn’t it a grand day to be alive? What’s the weather like where you are?’
‘The same as where you are, I expect, Mammy, given there’s only about ten miles between us.’
‘Sure, you’re talking about Ireland, Moira.
You know yourself it could be like Iceland in Rathmines and the Caribbean over in Phibsborough.
We’ve beautiful blue autumn skies here in Howth today.
The sun is beating down, so it is. I’ve had to take my bendy yoga ladies’ jacket off, it’s so warm, and Pooh is positively frolicking. ’
Moira raised her eyes to take in a wishy-washy sky with an ominous black cloud speeding towards the city. She was glad of her scarf too, with the nip in the air, as she frowned. Mammy was convinced Howth had its own little microclimate going on.
‘Rosemary took Pooh for a walk along the sea wall while I did Roisin’s class and now I’m all limbered up.
’ Maureen had made her mind up not to think about Rosemary or Bold Brenda’s carry-on anymore.
It was easy given she was still coming down from her sugar high, as was Pooh.
The cream cake she'd originally bought for Ciara with a ‘C’ had instead been sacrificed to the dog. He needed to know she and Donal hadn’t abandoned him when they’d gone cruising.
Ciara, who worked at Maureen’s favourite clothes boutique and was a great help when it came to finding outfits, wouldn’t miss the cake, but rather than show up empty-handed Maureen had opted to head home instead of browsing the racks.
‘Mammy, don’t say “all limbered up”. It’s far too close to “all oiled up” for my liking.’ Moira shuddered.
Maureen carried blithely on. ‘Your sister is the size of a bus but she still manages to touch her toes.’
Having seen Roisin on Saturday, Moira was fairly certain Mammy was making this up. Her sister couldn’t see her toes, let alone touch them. They were all counting down to the newest little member of the family arriving in just over a month.
‘Oh yes, Moira. The yoga is wonderful for staying supple at my age.’
‘Mammy, don’t be saying words like “supple” either. ’Tis very annoying.’ In Moira’s opinion it was as bad as limbered and wasn’t far off becoming a banned word, like moist.
‘The yoga is oil for your joints, so it is. I’m after skipping down the main street now on my way home like a woman half my age. You want to see me.’
‘No, I don’t want to see you, Mammy, and I’ve told you that you don’t need to shout when you’re on your mobile phone.
I can hear you perfectly well because I am a woman half your age.
’ And then some, Moira added silently, holding the phone away from her ear.
Sure, all of Howth knew about her recent little problem with athlete’s foot and that she’d not been drying properly between her toes, thanks to Mammy and her mobile phone.
Hadn’t she rung her from her favourite nautical-themed café near the harbour to tell her to put some E45 cream on the itchy bits?
A great debate had broken out in the café over the need for something more hard-hitting than E45, and the call had turned into a fungal foot infection hotline.
‘I’m not shouting, Moira,’ Maureen O’Mara bellowed. ‘And can I get that in writing about you hearing perfectly well? Your hearing was so selective when you were younger, I had you at the ear, nose and throat specialist.’
True enough, Moira thought, but she’d also had Aisling at the podiatrist, convinced her walking about on tiptoes was going to damage her feet, when all the time she’d been practising for the day she could afford her first pair of Jimmy Choos.
Then there was Roisin, who’d been whisked off to the paediatric pulmonologist when Mammy was alarmed by her sudden wheezing.
It had turned out Rosi coveted her friend Letitia’s asthma inhaler for no reason other than she wanted one too.
And Patrick? Well, he’d gone to see a psychologist over his refusal to take his leather Billy Idol trousers off.
Fair play on that one, Moira thought. Then, hearing Mammy begin a separate conversation altogether with a stranger, she rolled her eyes. She was telling the passer-by all about where the Bendy Yoga Studio her daughter Roisin had opened in Howth could be found.
There was a muffled question.
‘Oh yes, it would work wonders on your plantar fasciitis,’ Maureen told the stranger.
Moira would put money on her not even knowing what plantar fecky-wotsit was. It sounded vaguely fungal to her ears, and she should know.
‘C’mere to me now, what’s your name?’ Maureen asked the stranger.
There was a muffled reply.
‘Dee-Dee, grand. Well, Dee-Dee, my friend Rosemary Farrell, who cohabitates with her manfriend Cathal Carrick, the cobbler down the lane just back there—he’s your man for special shoes, by the way—is new to the yoga and she swears by it.
My daughter Roisin runs Howth’s only Bendy Yoga Studio, which is above Rosemary’s manfriend’s shoe shop. She has a bionic hip, by the way.’
Moira listened in disbelief to her mammy, who would have been in her element on one of those pushy television call-free-on-1800 adverts.
You know the ones where they sell exercise equipment or sunglasses, or even cleaning products that will transform your life.
Jesus wept, she thought, beginning to regret her call.
‘Mammy! I’m still here, you know.’
‘Hold your horses there, Moira. I’m talking to Dee-Dee. You’d think I’d raised a heathen, so you would.’
The muffled voice again.
‘Your daughter’s just the same, you say?’
What did “hold your horses” even mean? Moira huffed. It was a ridiculous saying.
‘No, my daughter doesn’t have the bionic hip, Dee-Dee. That would be Rosemary Farrell, and she says the yoga has helped with her hill walking and seen a vast improvement in her and Cathal’s —’
No, no, no. Supple. Limber. Those horrible words echoed in Moira’s ears and her grip on her phone turned white-knuckled.
She had a sinking sensation about where this conversation was heading.
If Mammy told poor Dee-Dee that Rosemary Farrell had been enjoying certain other physical activities with her cobbler manfriend since she'd been flinging her legs back over her shoulder in the plough pose, then she’d hang up.
‘Bowls technique.’
Thank feck.
‘Oh yes, Rosemary says their firing shots are feared by their fellow bowlers these days.’
Enough was enough. ‘Mammy, I was talking to you first. Would you say goodbye to your new friend Dee-Dee and listen?’ Moira shouted this so loudly that the little woman with the big owl glasses she'd come to a halt beside at the lights jumped out of her skin. Her eyes were like saucers behind the thick lenses. Moira didn’t apologise and she didn’t care if the shouting was hypocritical because what she’d rung to talk about was important.
‘Don’t be shouting at me like that. You’ve just lost your sister a customer, so you have. Dee-Dee’s after charging off down the road and I’m after losing my post-yoga glow.’
Give me strength. The woman bellowed like a bull in heat every time she used her mobile phone, Moira thought.
‘Mammy, would you listen? Bronagh’s after telling me she wants you as her matron of honour, you and Leonard’s sister Joan, but —’ The green man signalled and, as Moira crossed the road, she could hear her mammy’s heavy breathing as she waited for the 'but'.
She also noted that the little woman with the owl glasses was sticking close, clearly keen to hear what the “but” was too.
‘Myrna feels she should have her sister Hilary.’
‘That selfish bint!’
‘Myrna?’
‘No. Hilary. Leave it with me, Moira.’
The line went dead.
Next, Moira rang her sisters. There was important bridesmaids’ business to discuss.
They all loved Bronagh. She deserved to have the wedding day of her dreams, and the O’Mara women would see to it that that’s what she got.