Beautiful, really.
Great rack.
Endless legs.
I’m an adult.
I’ll deal with it.
CHAPTER 2
Saoirse: Friday 3 December
Ihit Mam’s number on my phone as I walk to Park Royal tube station at eight o’clock sharp the next morning. Better get this conversation over with: the one where I admit I won’t be coming home for Christmas.
Predictably enough, the image that greets me is a close-up of Mam’s ear, all flesh-coloured and blurry.
‘… not sure if this is a FaceTime or a phone call,’ Mam mutters.
‘Mam! Turn your head!’
‘What the—’ There’s some static and then Mam’s face. There she is. I wave a bit manically. I’m not sure why I do this—call them at breakfast time. Seeing Mam and Da and Clodagh at the breakfast table is what makes me the most homesick, which is ridiculous, given I haven’t lived at home for a decade.
But being in Dublin is one thing.
Being in London, away from my family and friends and three million (all right, thirty-eight) cousins is something else.
Mam has her full face on. She looks great. She dies her hair jet black. Has done for years, so I’m not sure when she startedgreying. All I know is that she was young, because Mam loves to remind me to keep a relentless eye on my roots. She’s one of the managers at Avoca Handweavers, a mill and restaurant that turned the town of Avoca in Wicklow into a huge tourist trap years ago. She loves her job, and the change in her these past few months, as things have started to open up a bit in Ireland and the tourists have crept back, has been amazing.
‘Is that a new lipstick, Mam?’
‘It is.’ Mam rubs her lips together. It looks great, actually, against her huge green eyes. Another thing I have to thank her for. ‘It’s Charlotte Tilbury; would you credit it? I got it in Brown Thomas on Saturday.’
‘Very swish. Mam, I?—’
‘Say good morning to your father, would you?’ Mam does not, of course, flip the screen, but instead turns the physical phone over and pans vigorously to where she imagines the camera will pick up Da. Instead, I get a lovely view of the dresser. There are already a few Christmas cards on there. Already? Who on earth sends cards by the 3rd December?
‘Mam. Mam? A bit to the left. I can only see the dresser.’
Mam adjusts accordingly, and Da comes into view. The image bumps around a bit. He raises his mug of tea, and I know, without being able to see, that it’s tar-black. Barry’s teabags. Two in the mug. Revolting.
‘How are ya, pet.’ Da is a man of few words. Which is just as well. Mam has plenty of words for everyone. Da retired a few years back. Mam will never, ever retire. They’ll have to drag her out of Avoca Handweavers, feet first. Preferably in a handwoven shroud, if Mam has her way.
‘Morning, Da. Is Clodagh there?’
‘She’s straightening her hair,’ Mam yells.
‘Right.’ Of course she is. Clodagh is the only one of the five of us left at home, the baby of the family. She’s doing her Leaving Cert in June and has made it very clear that she willhot-foot it to London after that, presumably requiring me to babysit her.
Mam turns the phone over again and comes back into view.
‘Where are you off to, love? I thought you finished the Montague job yesterday?’
‘Yes, well. About that. I got a new job, actually. Looking after a little four-year-old girl. Bea. She’s a dote. Um—her dad actually owns the hotel.’
‘He what? He owns it? Sweet Jesus. He must be made of money, then.’
‘I don’t think he’s short of a pound or two. They’re staying in the hotel for a few weeks. In the Dickens Penthouse. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?’
