‘It’s a great time to throw things out,’ she informs me loftily. ‘De-junk. Clear your space and your head.’
Maura is totally into the Japanese art of having no junk in your house and folding your knickers beautifully. I have tried this but just don’t have the patience. Neither does Pip.
‘Don’t let her throw me out,’ he begs me with a twinkle in his eye. He waggles a celebratory couple of bottles of wine at Dan, who grins back.
‘There will be no wine until people have helped move furniture and we set up a vacuuming rota,’ I order. ‘We were at it for hours yesterday and I swear, it’s worse.’
Dan nods. ‘I think I tore a ligament moving the kitchen table.’
Imoved the kitchen table again while he was off trying to fix his coffee machine, but say nothing.
‘Auntie Mooway!’ shrieks Teddy, spotting her aunt Maura. ‘I’m hungry. Want crunchy sweetie brekkie things ...?’ she adds cunningly.
You give the child cereal one day and she’s after it every day.
‘Can she?’ asks Maura, who is putty in Teddy’s tiny little hands.
‘Only if you run around after her for two hours while the sugar buzz is on,’ I say.
In September, Teddy is starting school and I fear for whatever junior infants teacher has been assigned to her class. Teddy is very sociable as a result of two years of Montessori but rarely does anything she’s told unless a bribe is involved.
‘None of the girls coming?’ I ask Maura now.
My two nieces, a scarilygrown-up seventeen andeighteen-year-old, both of whom are still in school and one of which has her huge State exams coming in June, would be handy for playing Super Mario with Liam and gossiping with Lexi because theWi-Fi is still patchy and this is a fate worse than death.
‘Later,’ Maura says, heading to the kitchen. ‘You know they’re vampires at the weekends. Alex goes to bed at one a.m., up at noon because she’s internetting all night and Gilly studies at those exact hours, no matter what I say about how studying late doesn’t work.’
When Dan’s brother, Zed arrives, there is a lot ofgood-?humoured teasing about the size of the place.
‘Madame, or should I say, Your Grace,’ he says to me, bowing low. ‘The Palace of Versailles is looking lovely this morning. May I be shown to the drawing room or the red salon? I hear there is a bathroom in the fashionable shade of avocado that is worth seeing ...?’
I whip my trusty kitchen roll from the front of my apron and bop him on the head with it.
‘It’s not that much bigger than our old house,’ I say, which is true. But our old house wassemi-detached, which is the big difference.
‘She likes the wall,’ says Pip, and he and Zed laugh. Clearly this is a topic which has been laughed over before.
‘Keeps the paparazzi out,’ says Zed.
I feel the hot sting of being misunderstood but dampen it down. Zed and Pip haven’t a clue why I like my wall. I am determined to be grateful and not argue with anyone.
‘It’s just a wall,’ says Dan, glaring at them both.
He walks past and plants a tender kiss on my temple.
‘Thanks, darling,’ I murmur, then I turn to my twobrothers-in-law.
‘You pair are hereby charged with lifting and organising the heaviest furniture,’ I say with the special TV smile I’ve perfected to tell viewers that really, anyone can make crème brûlée. Anyonecanbut it turns out that many people find it deeply threatening.
All is soon forgotten as my mother rolls up in her elderly estate car circa 1981 and tries to do athree-hundred-and-fifty-seven-point turn in order to be facing the gate. She was never a fabulous driver but having my grandfather in the back roaring instructions at her undoubtedly doesn’t help. He has to sit in the back middle seat sincehe flipped the bird at a traffic policeman.
I look at Dan. ‘Will you go and—’
‘Yeah, she’s going to bang into that little yellow bush. What’s it called?’
We both stare.
‘Haven’t a clue.’
