Chapter 17
Bronagh, lurking in the living room doorway, was smarting over her mam’s excitement about Hilary’s impending visit—especially the assumption she’d give up her bed for the weekend and sleep on the sofa.
It wasn’t fair. There was no question of sharing with Mam, and a night on that sofa would have her hobbling.
Still, the alternative, top and tailing with her sister, held little appeal.
While her mam twittered on with Hilary this and Hilary that, Bronagh zoned out, wondering whether she’d have time to clear her sister’s old room.
In its current state, she was barely able to get in the door, the room having become what she liked to think of as a storage space when, in fact, it leaned more towards a dumping ground.
There were things in there she’d been meaning to take to the charity shop or the tip for ages, not to mention all Leonard’s gear.
The poor man had been splitting his time between two homes and, once they’d got engaged, had begun bringing bags of his things over whenever he visited.
It was no good, she decided. Sorting the room out in time was an impossible task. It would have to be the top and tailing.
The wicked thought that her foot could accidentally-on-purpose slip in the night and boot her sister made her smirk.
It was fair to say Hilary didn’t bring out the best in her.
She wasn’t finished yet either, picturing the look on her sister’s face if she warned her to keep well clear of her feet because verrucas were contagious. Ha!
‘Bronagh, do you think we should get new sheets and a duvet for the bed? Sheets with a good thread count, mind, because Hilary’s very particular.’ Myrna asked the question from her armchair, a blanket draped across her knees. The television flickered in the background, the volume turned low.
This was where Bronagh found her most evenings when she got home.
Tonight, the room smelled of the leftover spaghetti bolognese she’d left her mam for lunch.
Had Sara from next door popped in today?
Their neighbour was part of the problem when it came to moving house because Myrna would miss her cheerful breezing in and out.
She’d get to know her new neighbours, though, Bronagh told herself.
And Sara, bless her, had already said she’d swing by once a week wherever they moved to.
Linda, her friend from her days at Arnotts, wouldn’t stop calling just because she’d moved a suburb or two away either.
It wasn’t as though they were crossing borders or anything of the sort.
They weren’t even talking about crossing the river, for heaven’s sake.
She’d still get to go to her beloved club too.
Things weren’t going to change that much.
Her mam chattered on, and Bronagh tried to focus, even though her use of the royal ‘we’ when it came to purchasing new bed linen had irked her.
What Myrna actually meant was that Bronagh should rush out and buy it.
That was taking things too far, though, and she couldn’t help sounding snippy.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my duvet, Mam, and we don’t need new sheets. ’
‘But a new duvet might brighten the room up a bit. It could do with a lick of paint in there too, but I don’t suppose there’s time for that.’ Myrna frowned. ‘Oh, and towels. We’ll be needing new towels.’
‘The room was painted a few years ago when we repapered in here,’ Bronagh pointed out, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. ‘And we’ve plenty of towels, Mam.’
‘But ours have seen better days. Sure, it’s like drying myself with sandpaper after my bath. I’ve told you that.’
It was the first she’d heard of it, but Bronagh didn’t bother arguing. There was no point when her mam was off on a tangent like this.
Then Myrna added, half to herself and half to Bronagh, ‘Yes, some lovely fluffy towels will do nicely. Blue ones, I think.’
If Mam said blue was Hilary’s favourite colour, that was it, Bronagh resolved. She’d march back out the front door, taking the pork sausages she’d picked up for their tea with her. The dog down the road would enjoy a treat. Her shoulders relaxed a little when the remark wasn’t forthcoming.
No matter what bright ideas Mam had about sprucing the place up between now and Saturday, Bronagh had no intention of rushing out to buy things they didn’t need or picking up a paintbrush.
It wouldn’t make a jot of difference anyway.
Hilary would still turn her nose up at the house where she’d grown up.
Her sister had always had ideas above her station, right from when she was a little girl, and Bronagh had never understood why.
She’d always been happy with her lot. The younger Hilary used to insist on playing a game of her own invention with Bronagh and the other girls on their street.
It was called Big House. Hilary cast herself in the role of lady of the manor while everyone else ran about pretending to be her servants.
Needless to say, the game had been kicked to the kerb fairly quickly.
Her sister was blessed with a sharp mind and a determined spirit, and fair play, they were admirable qualities, but in Bronagh’s opinion she hadn’t put either of them to good use.
She recalled how proud their mam and dad had been when Hilary won a scholarship to attend the exclusive Alexandra College.
Would they have been quite so thrilled had they the foresight to see that Hilary’s need to belong at her new school would mean distancing herself from what she saw as her humble beginnings?
She stopped bringing school friends home and knocking about with Bronagh and the other children in the neighbourhood.
She even started modulating her vowels, not just behaving differently but sounding different too.
Soon enough, even if she’d wanted to join in with Bronagh and the local children, she’d no longer have fitted in.
And where had that smart education taken her? To university briefly, and then nowhere. When she met George, who came from a monied background, she hadn’t bothered finishing her studies, dropping out and marrying him instead. At last, she had her place in society and the house to go with it.
Mam had never said it, but Bronagh knew her eldest daughter’s thinly veiled distaste for the home where she’d grown up had hurt her deeply.
‘She can take us as she finds us, Mam,’ Bronagh said curtly.
Myrna appeared not to hear her. ‘We could go out for a meal on Saturday night. It would be nice to do something special, just the three of us.’
So much for knocking on death’s door with the stress of a possible move, Bronagh silently hmphed.
Over the years, she’d watched her mam desperately try to please Hilary.
She’d seen how grateful she was for the smallest bit of attention from her eldest daughter or time with her grandchildren—grandchildren who rarely came to see their Dublin nan.
Hilary rang every Sunday to speak to Myrna, and Bronagh imagined her ticking the call off a to-do list under: Call Mother.
From where Bronagh stood, it was clear that the more Myrna bowed and scraped, the more Hilary sneered.
Well, she’d had enough. ‘It’s not the Queen of England coming to stay, Mam.
Hilary doesn’t need to be wined and dined. ’
‘Ah now, don’t be like that.’ Myrna jabbed the remote at the television, turning it off, then angled herself towards Bronagh.
‘Sure, your sister’s doing you a good turn coming up this weekend to sort this wedding of yours out.
She leads a busy life in Tramore, as you well know.
And it’s a blessing she’s taking her role as matron of honour seriously because, from what she tells me, the same can’t be said for you as the bride.
There’s you telling Lenny you’ve got everything in hand too.
If it was left to you the poor man would be off to Eddie Rocket’s for a burger and chips after your vows.
’ She shook her head not finished yet. ‘I put your dilly-dallying with the organising down to pre-wedding jitters, but you’ve set a date and the wedding won’t happen on its own, Bronagh.
So don’t be biting the hand that feeds you. You need Hilary’s help.’
Saint Hilary strikes again, Bronagh thought, biting her tongue because what was the point of telling Mam she didn’t want Hilary involved at all? She didn’t want the sort of day Hilary would organise. ‘I’d best get the dinner on,’ she said, turning away.
‘And while you’re at it, put biscuits on the shopping list—good ones, Bronagh—and don’t be eating them on the way home from Tesco. Oh, and a nice bottle of wine and some cheese, paté and crackers would be nice.’
Bronagh couldn’t say much about eating biscuits on the way home from shopping.
She was guilty as charged, but since when did they sit around sipping wine and eating cheese and crackers?
As for paté, her mam never touched the stuff.
Enough was enough. She swung around. ‘Mam, just so you know, I never wanted Hilary to be my matron of honour. You were the one who asked her, not me, and if you’d given me the chance to pick who I wanted, it would have been Leonard’s sister, Joan, and Maureen.
’ She didn’t know who looked more surprised by this uncharacteristic outburst—her or her mam.
‘Maureen O’Mara?’
‘Who else?’
‘Bronagh, don’t take that tone with me.’
Janey-mack! Bronagh seethed, half-expecting her mam to tack ‘young lady’ onto the end of her sentence.
That was the thing about living with your mam.
It didn’t matter how old she got; her mam was still her mam, and she was still her child.
She might not get the wooden spoon waved at her when she was cheeky these days, but the memory of it saw her soften her voice.
‘Mam, you know yourself, Róisín, Aisling and Moira are family to me. I want them all in the bridal party as well. I’ve had more to do with them over the years than Erin, even if she is my niece.
Besides, it’s not like I was Hilary’s maid of honour.
That’s why I don’t understand this expectation on your part that she should be mine. It’s not fair.’ There. She’d said it.
‘Bronagh Hanrahan, I wish you could hear yourself. Tit for tat. Sure, you sound like a child, not a grown woman in her middling years. You’ve always been prickly where your sister is concerned, and jealousy is not an attractive trait.
But I’m telling you, Hilary would be devastated — devastated, I say — if she thought you didn’t want her or Erin involved in your day.
As it is she’s always felt on the outer living in Tramore while you’ve been here with me. ’
Since when? Bronagh fumed. The distance suited Hilary down to the ground.
‘And I volunteered your sister for the simple reason that she is your sister. Can’t you see this is a way for the pair of you to reconnect? As for Joan, she’ll understand why Hilary’s matron of honour. She’s not the sort who likes to be the centre of attention anyway.’
Bronagh’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t remember when we were close, and we’re not talking about a wedding the size of that Beckham one with the Spice Girl. Joan would be grand.’
Myrna ignored the reference to Joan. ‘I don’t suppose you do remember, but there was a time you and your sister were inseparable.
The pair of you were thick as thieves once.
’ Her eyes misted with a long-ago memory, then, quick as a flash, cleared as she glanced sharply at Bronagh.
‘What happens when I’m gone? Tell me that.
The way things stand between you two, you’d never see or hear from one another again.
The only time you talk now is when it’s something to do with me.
As a mam, it breaks my heart to think of my girls being strangers to each other. ’
Bronagh opened her mouth to protest. She wanted to say the distance between them was down to Hilary, not her, and that it should be Hilary getting the telling-off, but Myrna held up a hand to silence her.
‘Let me finish, please.’
She really was beginning to feel like she was five years old, Bronagh thought, doing as she was told.
‘As fond as I am of Maureen and the girls, Hilary and Erin are family. Remember that.’ With that, Myrna sank back into her chair, spent.
She’d been fierce a moment ago, but now she looked every bit the frail elderly lady she was, Bronagh thought imagining her heart fluttering in her chest like a small injured bird.
She felt guilty for having riled her in the first place because, for most of her adult life, her mam had been unwell on and off.
This was the nature of the ME Myrna had been diagnosed with after years of trying to find answers for the mysterious illness that plagued her.
Back when she’d first become sick, people had thought it was all in her head, but Bronagh had seen her suffering firsthand and had never wanted to contribute to it.
This had meant biting her tongue and backing down on occasion over the years, which was nothing compared to what her mam endured when she was unwell.
Rheumatoid arthritis had recently added itself to the list of Myrna’s ailments, and Bronagh was ever mindful that stress was a trigger.
She didn’t want to back down on this occasion, though.
In fact, she was certain she shouldn’t. But habits were hard to break.
‘Don’t work yourself up, Mam. It will all work out. Look, I’ve got us both a nice pork sausage for our dinner.’ She held up the shopping bag she’d not yet had a chance to put down.
Recognising a white flag, Myrna seized it. ‘From Murphy’s, I hope. You know Neville’s are made with real pork and not merely flavoured with it.’
‘I do, and I did. He was asking after you.’
‘Was he? That was nice of him.’ Myrna smiled, picked up the remote and, with the flick of a switch, the discussion was forgotten and things returned to how they’d been.