I could mention that if my mother had taught my ditzythirty-nine-year-old brother how to wash his own clothes when he was a teenager, he might still be married and not be back in the family home clogging the place up like a freeloading guest without the skills to cook, buy groceries, wash towels, clean the bathroom after he’s used it, or offer to pitch in with rent money.
But I never point out what my mothershouldhave done. My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to listen, agree with her and then nod silently athow could his wife throw him out of the house?The irony of this never escapes me.
There are three kids in my family and Dominic, the youngest, could do no wrong in my mother’s eyes until recently during theyear-long-catastrophe that is Dom’s marriagebreak-up. His wife got tired of being married to achild-man who thinks there’s a laundry/cooking/cleaning fairy.
Dominic is not my problem. April, my sister, a woman who believes in romantic fairy tales, is not my problem either. April’s the oldest of us three but I definitely parent her. How did this happen? I can’t afford the therapy to find out.
As the family fixer, I’m the one who gets the annoyed phone calls from my mother and the begging ones from my father. Last week’s instalment in thislong-running saga: ‘Marin, can you say you need a babysitter next Wednesday? Pretty please? Your mother’s got thebook-club women in.’
The ‘book-club women’ are Ma’s friends who prefer bitching about their other halves to reading. When they’re there, she loudly discusses how bad her life is with my poor father able to hear every word from the tiny den next door, even when he has the sound turned up on the telly.
Being the family fixer also means getting exhausted calls from Dom’s wife,Sue-Who-Deserves-Sainthood, who needs Dom to appoint a lawyer so they can get on with the legalities; and then calls from my mother again, who must have got some of thelawyer-type calls from Sue too, because she’s got bursitis in one of her knees owing toback-to-back novenas, praying for Dom’s marriage. My mother doesn’t believe in divorce.
If Ma knew about April’s life choices, all of which involve married men, I’d have to call an ambulance.
I know my duty: calm my mother down or she’ll have bursitis in the other knee too.
‘I’ll talk to Dominic, Ma,’ I say. ‘I think Dad’s been planting some Christmas bulbs he wants to force for you. He knows how you love hyacinths,’ I add, which is a white lie, because I told him to plant something to keep her happy. ‘There’s something about the scent of them in the house for the holidays, isn’t there?’
Ma is thrilled with this vision of her taste and is mollified. Mollifying my mother is tricky but I am good at it: I’ve had enough practice, after all. Somehow, after her extracting a promise from me to phone Dom’s wife, Sue, I hang up.
Sue’s a decent woman who deserves better than Dominic, much and all as I love him. Until he grows up, there is no hope for him having a sensible relationship.
Ideally, he needs to get out of my parents’ house, live on his own and reflect that the real world is hard.
Saying you’re in love with someone in front of a church full of your friends and relatives is not what marriage is about. It’s about respect, compromise, caring, affection, kindness and, sometimes, making dinner for glamorous people who intimidate you because it will make your spouse happy.
It’s Saturday evening, I’ve been out all afternoon showing a lovely late Edwardian house to scores of people who are all interested, but none interested enough to put in an offer. This means that as I stand in the kitchen sweating over a hot stove, I’m feeling irritated and somewhat put upon because of having to cook instead of ordering take out and collapsing in front of the telly. Bea and Luke are late, which is a pity, as Bea is a marvellous cook and always helps, and Luke could play Xbox with poor Joey who is currently sitting silently with Alexandra, Angie and Steve’sten-year-old daughter, while she plays with her mother’s phone.
It’s my fault: ‘Be polite to her,’ I always say and he does his best. They’re in the same class at school and don’t really get on, so I know he feels aggrieved to be stuck with her at the weekend as well as during the week.
Rachel is out at her friend Megan’s house, where they’re doing something that involves watching TV simultaneously with their friend in college in Galway. It’s at moments like this that I question Rachel’s – and Megan’s – decision to have a gap year before starting college late next September. In March, they’ll have earned enough from their various jobs to start asix-month travel fest around the world. The problem is that they’re enjoying themselves so much, I don’t know if they’ll ever go to college.
Her evening out means I’m in the kitchen alone. I have pulled out as many stops as I can and spent far too much buying expensive beef with which to make a teriyaki beef stir fry. No matter how much prep you do beforehand,stir-frying for nine means you end up with two woks and sweat breaking out on your forehead.
‘Can I help?’
It’s Angie, who always offers to help and I always say no.
Tonight, as ever, she looks immaculate. To aclothes-obsessed woman like myself, I can see that she has the right sneakers (expensive), worn with ankle skimming jeans (also expensive) and a cream silk and cashmere zipped hoodie that clings. You can tell it’s got silk in there: the fineness of the cashmere is the key. There’s a translucency there to the expert/obsessive eye.
I almost moan. I’ve seen most of the outfit on Net à Porter: not in the sale part of the site, although that’s where I spend hours scrolling. Not buying. Just scrolling.
Angie is perfect.
In her presence, I feel diminished and then ashamed at feeling so. How can I be a fit mother to a nearly grown daughter when I let such stupid things as clothes and body image affect me so badly?
‘No, really, Marin. Let me do something. The men are talking work and I am fed up of work.’
She does try but I can’t let her.
‘You’ll ruin your clothes if you fry,’ I say. ‘How about moving the drinks into the dining area and warming the plates,’ I improvise.
‘Sure.’
By the time dinner is served, with Angie having carried the plates to the table and having called everyone, I feel like the scullery maid in a period film with Angie as the elegant lady hostess.
‘It looks gorgeous,’ says Nate, his hand resting on Angie’s shoulder as he walks round her to his seat at the table.
