The video starts to play, showing Mrs Bishop waving madly as she journeys up on the travelator towards the womenswear section.
A caption pops up on the screen.
See what happens when we are let loose in Asda.
Suddenly both my mother and Mrs Bishop are on the screen, doing a piece to camera. Okay, they aren’t quite looking at the lens and have a quick argument about whether or not ‘this thing is working’ before they start talking properly, both using theirvery best phone voices. Hyacinth Bucket has nothing on Roisin Burnside when she switches on her best posh elocution.
‘Hi, guys,’ she says, and I almost choke. Hi, guys? My mother is talking like an experienced TikTokker. ‘Today we’ve come to Asda in Strabane to get the messages. For those of you not from the Northwest of Ireland – the messages are what we would call your goods. You know, your shopping.’
‘Your groceries,’ Mrs Bishop chimes in authoritatively.
‘We thought we’d use this trip to show you what is on offer in Strabane Asda. Strabane, you see, is what some might call a hidden gem of a place in County Tyrone,’ my mother says.
‘Who would call it that, Roisin?’ Mrs Bishop asks, and once again I almost choke. The rivalry between Derry and Strabane is a thing of legend around these parts.
I watch as they wander around the shop, talking about the great deals on offer, and I think maybe I was worrying about nothing. The thumbnail, I figure, might be clickbait. Not that I’d expect my mother to know what clickbait is, but before this morning I’d never have thought she’d have known what TikTok is either.
I start to relax, just a little, before the ‘skit’ begins and I see my mother, bold as brass, act out being escorted from the premises before persuading poor Jimmy to grin at the camera with her and Mrs Bishop – all three of them with their thumbs up.
I’m caught between abject horror and admiration for them both, and I am grateful to my bones that this has provided a distraction from the horror of ‘we need to talk’.
9
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE RECENTLY DECEASED
Laura
Laura reads the exchange between Niamh and Becca once again and feels sick to the pit of her stomach.
No, she does not have one single notion what her brother is at, but she really hasn’t got the impression from him that he wants to break up with Becca. That doesn’t stop her feeling sick anyway.
Because she has been here before – and she knows what will happen if things go tits up. As much as she has been happy for her friend and her brother finding some second-act love story with each other, she has – from that very first day – lived with fear over what it could mean for her if it all goes wrong.
She is pretty sure she wouldn’t cope with another big freeze-out. It had absolutely devastated her when she and Becca, and then by association, Niamh, had fallen out during Becca’s divorce.
She’d understood at the time why her friend was upset – of course she did. Laura herself was not a big fan of Simon Cookeand how he had treated Becca and their sons. But Simon was Aidan’s best friend, and her husband had wanted to play the role of the supportive confidant. She was hardly going to tell him he couldn’t.
When Aidan had invited Simon to stay with them for a bit post break-up, she had been horrified but again didn’t feel she could put her foot down. After all, if Becca had needed a roof over her head, Laura would have had no hesitation whatsoever in providing one.
It had been her hope that Becca would understand this on some level, but of course Becca was much too hurt, and had felt betrayed. And wherever Becca Burnside went, Niamh Cassidy followed. Though they are their own little triumvirate, there is no doubt in her mind that if push came to shove it is she who would be pushed and shoved. Once again.
Her fingers hover over her phone, stuck in a pattern of typing and deleting and typing and deleting a response until Aidan takes her phone from her.
‘Whatever that is about, it’s not doing you any good,’ he says. ‘You’re supposed to be relaxing and celebrating your first day at uni, not getting caught up in any drama. Let me guess, it’s Becks and Niamh again?’
She nods. ‘Becca is worried Conal might be going to break up with her.’
Aidan rolls his eyes. ‘Has he given any indication he might be going to break up with her?’
There is something in the way he rolls his eyes that sets her even more on edge. Things have been tense between them anyway. Ever since he finally came home at gone eight, her restaurant booking long missed, and asked her what was for tea. He’d eventually ordered a pizza while she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the plans she had made for them. He’d only tellher she should’ve let him know and somehow it will all be her fault. Which, she thought, it probably was…
Snatching her phone back, she tries to tell herself that he is trying to be supportive, but there is something she can’t put her finger on that annoys her. The casual dismissing of her friend’s worries, perhaps. Or maybe it’s the casual dismissing of her own. How could this man she has known most of her adult life not instinctively know anything about her emotional needs, and that she sometimes feels exceptionally insecure in her friendships? How can he not know how triggering all of this is for her? Then again, this is a man who never thought she might want to celebrate her big return to school with him. Who came home and ordered pizza, not asking her if she wanted any. Assuming she had already eaten. Or not caring. She isn’t entirely sure.
Ten minutes later, and with Aidan now sleeping, blissfully unaware of her inner turmoil, she looks at her phone again – any attempt at a response to her friends now abandoned – wondering if things are about to go wrong for her, just as she is embracing her new beginning with her studies. She’s not a negative person, normally. And maybe it’s just because she’s tired but her earlierjoie de vivrehas turned into amal de vivre.
Giving up the ghost on drifting off, especially now Aidan’s gentle snores have turned into something more ground-shaking, she gets up, pulls her big woolly pink cardigan on and pads downstairs.
She wanders their kitchen like a Victorian child desperately in need of sustenance, but finds nothing that would please her. She opens the cupboards and the fridge multiple times, hoping in vain that they will somehow magically replenish themselves. ‘I’m not even hungry,’ she whispers to herself as she instead pulls a can of Wild Strawberry Trip from the fridge. Okay, so fizzy drinks mightbe a very bad decision right now, but this one is a health drink, infused with magnesium to calm her restless mind. Being honest with herself, she’d love a crispy Diet Coke but even she is wise enough to know that a caffeine hit at this time of night will do her no good when it comes to eventually getting the sleep she needs.
