I nod. ‘Yes. But you know how it is, with first love and all that. He just wanted some extra time with Jodie before the new semester.’
Technically, it’s not a lie. He does want extra time with Jodie, and he has been enjoying his studies.
‘Ah, love’s young dream,’ my mother says. ‘I’d say I remember it well, but it was quite some time ago for me.’ She looks wistful as she thinks of my now departed daddy. How I wish he was still around to offer his usual reassurance and a big hug. There’s nothing that ever made me feel as safe and as loved as a hug from my dad.
My mother cuts through my thoughts. ‘But speaking of love’s young dream – how are things with young Conal?’
That she calls fifty-year-old Conal O’Hagan ‘young Conal’ amuses me. He finds it funny too. ‘Endearing’ I think is the word he used, just before he asked if I wanted him to book an appointment at Specsavers for her.
But when I think of how things are with ‘young Conal’, I can’t quite manage to hide the look of disappointment from my face. I do try. I do my best to plaster on a smile but I’m not fast enough and my mother’s left eyebrow shoots up in record time. Mammy detection mode is well and truly in operation. Her head tilts just a little to the side. ‘What is it?’ she asks, as she reaches across the table not, as I think, to grab the tastier of the two remaining buns, but instead to put her hand on mine. ‘What has he done?’
The expression on her face tells me this woman is ready to go into battle for me if I need her to.
‘He’s not done anything,’ I reassure her quickly, and it’s true. Any cooling off has been on my part as I’ve had to shift my focus elsewhere. There are only a limited number of ‘out of my comfort zone’ experiences I can deal with at a time, and the last thing I want is to expose my full melting-down self to the only man I’ve been remotely interested in in the last decade.
‘Oh, love. What is it then? You can tell me.’
The thing is, though, that I can’t. I simply can’t explain the complexity of what is going on to her without getting her worried sick about everything. And it is my life’s mission to make sure my mother does not get worried sick, or any kind of sick, any time in the near, or distant, future. She is much too precious to me.
‘We’re just taking things slowly,’ I say, and again, it’s not entirely a lie. We haven’t broken up as such. Although we never quite got round to the boyfriend and girlfriend conversation either. It seemed a little icky to talk in such terms given our advanced years. I’ve tried to reassure myself that as we’re still technically together, there is still a sort of glacial pace forward momentum to our relationship. I’m starting to worry, however, our final destination isn’t going to be in happy-ever-after land.
I haven’t seen Conal since two days after the pregnancy bombshell was dropped, and even then it was hardly a romantic date by any definition. We’d met for a quick coffee in a Caffè Nero, where I had cried a little bit, said the word ‘shitshow’ four times and he had sympathetically patted my hand, listened intently and told me he will be here for me and if there is anything I need I should just shout.
It was very kind of him to say that, but we all know, don’t we, that people don’t always mean it when they say such things. It’s just what you’re expected to say. It’s not considered polite to reply with ‘Sucks to be you’ or sing a chorus of ‘On your own, on your own, on your own!’ back at them. Conal and I had only been together a matter of weeks before the shit hit the festive fan, so it’s unfair to expect him to be ‘all in’ for any ongoing family drama.
Yes, we’d had a fun few weeks. He’s a wonderful man and he’d made Christmas feel extra magical – but we hadn’t been together long enough for me to expect him to hang around during a major family upheaval.
It’s not like we have even slept together yet. My boys had come home for Christmas two days after our first date, and there was no way I was breaking a ten-year drought with my two nineteen-year-olds in the house. It was embarrassing enough telling them I was dating someone. I’d blushed to my very roots when I told them. I might as well have been fourteen again and asking my parents if I could go to the Creggan disco with the girls – knowing full well there would be boys there and one of them just might be my first-ever kiss. A late bloomer, I was the last of our gang not to have had the ‘pleasure’ of a skill-lacking snog and boob grope by one of the many teenage boys who frequented the youth club. I’d felt like a marked woman until the deed was done.
To my surprise, the twins had reacted well to the news that I was back in the dating game. Saul had grinned and said, ‘Nice one, Mum.’ Adam had given me a big hug and said he was happy for me. I could tell by the expression on his face that he meant it.
When I introduced them both to Conal, they had declared him ‘pure sound’ – which is as high an accolade as you can hope for in our home city of Derry in Northern Ireland.
I’d been so optimistic. Here was a man who actually liked me. As inreallyliked me. He’d told me as much. And I liked him too – probably more than I dared to let on. I knew I wanted to do everything in my power to give us the best chance possible of turning this into something meaningful. Which meant, I soon realised, not inflicting Crisis-Management-Mode Becca on him.
He has enough to deal with without having to take my life crises into consideration. He is, after all, still mourning the loss of his mother, Kitty, who passed away last November. He’s also dealing with the practical side to bereavement, including undertaking the emotionally draining task of packing up her belongings and putting her house on the market.
We have said we’ll get together to walk the dogs some day this week – Daniel having taken a fondness for Conal’s dog, Lazlo – but as yet we haven’t managed to make it happen.
I’m trying not to let it get me down. But I’m sad that my dreams of frosty walks in the park, both of us in cute hats and scarves, me wearing mittens because I’ve suddenly morphed into the star of a Hallmark romance movie, have failed to materialise.
There has been no stopping at a cute little coffee cart to get hot chocolate from a wizened old man who is secretly some sort of angel or cupid figure. There has been no mingling of the steam from our breath as we move closer and kiss beneath branches sparkling with frost.
With every day that passes, it feels as if it’s slipping out of my reach more and more.
‘You’ve waited a long time to even think about love again,’ my mother says, slicing through my thoughts once again. ‘You don’t have to rush it. Better to take your time and get it right. And for God’s sake, enjoy it!’
I smile and nod and watch as my mother nudges the nicer of the two remaining buns in my direction. ‘You have that one,’ she says. ‘I have a feeling you need it more than I do today.’
I feel my resolve to stay composed and not cry waver. ‘Thank you, Mum,’ I say. ‘You’re very good to me.’
‘And you’re very good to me,’ she says with a smile. ‘Things will work out,’ she says, even though I’ve made no mention of things not working out.
Derry mammies know everything, I think. I was foolish to think I could keep my troubles from her.
4
YEAR 11 AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
