5
Marin
I can hear my brother and mother arguing before I’m even in the house.
Not all the words are audible but the ones I can hear make me want to run out the door. My mother can start an argument in an empty room. Now she’s roped Dom in.
‘Lazy ... taking me for granted ... disgrace!’
‘You said Sue was beneath me!’
My heart actually sinks. Nobody heard me arrive. I could sneak out and –
‘Marin!’ hisses Dad.
I turn in the hallway and find him peering out from the den where Ma keeps her crafting supplies and where Dad hides himself away duringbook-club nights and any other night when Ma is in a mood.
‘In here.’
I slip in and he shuts the door, delighted to see me.
We hug and I smell that quintessentially Dad smell of Old Spice and fresh ginger. Dad loves ginger and drinks it with lemon, cloves, fresh thyme and hot water every morning. His father gave him the recipe for his arthritis and he’s been drinking it for years now, even though Ma rubbishes it as ‘an old cure and not worth a patch on modern medicine’.
Ma also has arthritis and now takes a roll call of medicines to cope with the effects ofanti-inflammatories on her stomach lining.
‘What’s the row about this time?’ I ask, sitting down on the old worn couch that my father sits on every night to watch his beloved documentaries or gardening shows on TV.
‘Divorce,’ says Dad. ‘Dom told her he was definitely getting divorced and it hasn’t gone down well. You’d think he was planning a satanic ritual in the back garden.’
We both giggle. In truth, I think the reason my father has survived so many years with my mother is because he has such a good sense of humour. It’s either that or he’s growing cannabis in the allotment.
‘I’ve got an old black satin skirt we could repurpose for the altar,’ I suggest. ‘Doesn’t fit me anymore. My hips have spread.’
‘I could plant next year’s bulbs into a pentagram shape,’ Dad says.
We both giggle again.
‘I did try to tell her that divorce was a good plan so they could start again with other people but she stormed out,’ Dad goes on.
‘That was brave of you,’ I say, surprised. Dad is very mild mannered and rarely, if ever, goes up against my mother. He gets the full silent treatment for days when he does.
He looks guilty. ‘She was going to Mass. Didn’t want to be late.’
‘Ah.’
My mother goes to daily Mass, is first in line for communion and disapproves of everything the Vatican says she should disapprove of, no matter how cruel.
Her motto in life is ‘what will people/Fr Leonard think?’
It’s a very hard motto for us flawed human beings to live up to.
‘You have to get her to face facts, Marin,’ Dad continues. ‘With Dom living here, it’s like being on the front line. He needs another place to hang around in his oldT-shirts and boxers – which he was wearing when he opened the door to Gladys from choir, I might add. I’m too old to be living with this.’
I close my eyes briefly at my father’s begging and wonder exactly how I’m going to manage this one.
I’m not sure when I became the family member who was chosen to handle my mother but, somewhere along the way, it happened.
April, despite being the eldest, was always too dizzy and lost in her romantic novels to be of much use. Dominic was a little wild child, everyone’s favourite because he’s so much fun if utterly unable to do things on his own. Dad is incapable of handling the immoveable force that is my mother. I have wondered many times how they got married in the first place and then remind myself that Ma would have said: ‘Denis, church, twelve on Saturday, second one in June, next year. Yes?’ And Dad would have nodded.
