Chapter Six
Celia, my mother-in-law, was very much a hostess in the old-school style. She’d been giving dos and dinners since she and Michael Sr were newlyweds and he was an up-and-coming politician. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the pineapple and cheese on sticks or the mushroom vol-au-vents, but she had rung yesterday to make sure we were all still coming and checking that Rosie wouldbe there and that Michael had arrived back from Brussels and he wouldn’t be dashing off for some vote or problem, like he always did.
‘Iknowpoliticians,’ she reminded me. ‘I know what they are like. Michael Sr was exactly the same. He was married to his constituents first and Michael Jr and I second. Oh, I know I go on about the old days,’ she said, ‘but I think you met a better class of personback then. People showed respect to Michael Sr. Tipping hats, calling him sir.Listeningto what he had to say. I heard Michael Jr on the radio this morning and I was shocked to hear how disgracefully he was treated. The interviewer – if you can call him that – the interrupter, we shall say, well the interrupter just went on and on, not giving Michael a chance to talk about the Standards in PublicLife directive. Which I must say, is a simply wonderful idea. If my Michael can’t bring a bit of order to Europe, which is going to the dogs, then I don’t know who can. You will be here for 2 p.m., won’t you? Now, don’t be late. I know timekeeping isn’t your strong point, Tabitha.’ She sighed as though it was only one in a long list of shortcomings. ‘But please make an exception for my sake,will you. People want to see Michael, you know.’ And she was gone.
My timekeeping wasn’t what I would call an issue, in fact it was me who was standing in the hall today at 1.40 p.m. waiting for Rosie and Michael and looking at the framed photograph of me, Rosaleen and Nora on the hall table. Taken on a long ago trip to West Cork when I was Rosie’s age and we’re standing in front of Rosaleen’scherry tree in the garden of her family home outside Schull. The tree was her secret spot to get away from the world, she used to tell us, and there was a branch wide enough for her to crawl along and she’d look up into this cherry blossom world. Rosie and Rosaleen would have really liked each other, I thought, not for the first time. They would have got on so well. Rosaleen with her no-nonsensenurturing and Rosie with her lovely sense of humour. Well, her sense of humour that seemed to have disappeared.
‘Rosie,’ I called up the stairs, ‘are you ready?’ There was no answer. ‘Rosie!’ I called again. ‘Come on!’
Michael had been in town all morning working – wearing what he deemed his casual clothes, of which there was little discernible difference from his weekday clothes – it was justa suit without a tie.
‘Cufflinks!’ said Michael. ‘I need my cufflinks. You know the ones, my EU flags. People will want to see them.’ He stopped for a moment. ‘Everyone’s always so interested in what goes on in Brussels. It’s all anyone wants to talk about. Mammy’s made me promise to talk to everyone. I’d better stay off the champers just in case I get some policy wrong and it’s in all the papers!’He looked delighted at the thought of being mobbed by Celia’s friends, all panting for the ins and outs of the European Parliament. ‘Now, I need those cufflinks. People willexpectthem.’
A knock on the front door. ‘Lucy!’ Michael said, swinging open the door. ‘Perfectly on time, as always. It’s… exactly… seventeen minutes to two. Just as you said… to the dot!’
‘I hope you don’t mind, Tabitha,’she said, slightly embarrassed.
‘Not at all, Lucy,’ I said, ‘the more the merrier.’ I didn’t care if Noel and Liam Gallagher came along and had a proper fist-fight in the middle of the living room rug, as long as they made the afternoon slip by faster.
‘Mammy has been in such a twizzle about the party,’ said Michael, ‘that she has been on the phone to me and to Lucy about it for weeks. The leastLucy deserves is an invitation.’
‘Surely the least she deserves is a day off?’ I said.
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing.
‘Well, I bought her something,’ said Lucy. ‘I hope she’ll like it.’ She dragged a large present from outside which was beautifully wrapped in flowery paper and adorned with a giant pink bow. ‘It’s a crystal carriage clock. But Mary said that crystal carriage clocks are straightout of the 1970s.’ She looked slightly crest-fallen.
‘Lucy, thinking about Celia’s décor and the food she serves, I am confident the 1970s is her favourite decade.’ I hoped Lucy was going to be luckier buying presents for Celia than I had been over the years. Every posh scented candle, silk scarf, cashmere cardigan, designerobjet, every single trinket I had ever bought her was usually re-giftedto someone else. One year, she even re-gifted me a rather nice blue cardigan the following Christmas. Hopefully Waterford crystal would be the breakthrough present.
‘I do hope so!’ said Lucy. ‘Mary’s always going to Ikea these days, buying trendy bits and bobs. But some people still like the more traditional things. My Mammy does for one. And…’ she dropped her voice. ‘It’s asecond. It’s hasa flaw, apparently, in the crystal. But you’d never know. Costhalfwhat it should. I do like a bargain and it’sunnoticeable.’
‘She’ll love it,’ I said. ‘And you don’t have to tell her it’s a second.’
‘Haveyouseen my cufflinks?’ said Michael to Lucy. ‘I had them this week and now…’ He began patting himself down in an increasingly frenzied way. ‘The ones with the EU flag on. My special ones…’
‘Inner pocket of your Louis Copeland?’ she said immediately. ‘You had them on Thursday when we had the SIPL meeting. With your blue shirt with the thin stripe.’
‘Smart girl!’ he said, charging up the stairs, meeting Rosie on the way down.
‘At last!’ I said. ‘Come on, sweetheart, what on earth have you been doing up there?’ But she looked pale and washed out. ‘Are you okay? Are you feeling allright?’
‘Yeah,’ she said, huffily. ‘Can you please stop going on?’
‘Stop your fussing, Mammy,’ said Michael, drumming down the stairs, twisting in his cufflinks. ‘Fuss, fuss, fuss!’
*
When I met Michael, for some reason, intentionally or not, he made me laugh. He was earnest and sweet. And well-meaning. And I admired him. A young man standing up for what he believed in and I’d been broughtup to value principles and conviction and, although he wasn’t like Nora who thought nothing of camping out on a pavement to make a point, in his own way, he was putting himself out there. And more than anything, I wanted to have a baby.
Michael was equally in a hurry to settle down because for a man with serious political ambitions, a wife was an entirely necessary appendage. We weren’t muchof a success as a couple, even before Rosie arrived, but I hoped I had guaranteed Rosie extra years of happiness by giving her what I had thought was a proper family. But maybe it was perfectly okay to have two parents who were flatmates rather than passionate teammates. I wanted Rosie to have what I didn’t. A Dad. A Father. Someone who would love her completely and utterly. I wanted her life to bewonderful. I had thought by staying with Michael, I couldn’t fail. But now as I sat in the ministerial car beside my silent daughter, listening to my husband and his secretary chat about meetings and strategies – and all about the powers of milk – as if I wasn’t there, I was beginning to wonder. Had it really been the best thing?
*
Michael had grown up in the house but for some reason – whichI had never quite fathomed – he was never given a key and the four of us, clutching our gifts, smiles plastered to face, stood outside, waiting for Celia.
But it was Imelda Goggins, Celia’s best pal, who let us in. School friends and maids of honour at each other’s weddings, Celia and Imelda had lived in each other’s pockets for the last half a century.
