I don’t want to avoid eye contact, it seems extra cold and mean especially when she is so ridiculously cute, but I also know that even at such a tender age that child can wrap me around her ridiculously small and beautiful little finger. And the first weapon in her armoury just happens to be that heart-melting gaze. Strange as it sounds, I was more able to enforce the strictness that is necessary for survival in early motherhood when it was my own children. Perhaps that was because theywere twins and really, when I think about it, it’s a miracle any of us got out of it alive. Or maybe it’s just that being a granny brings with it the privilege of being able to lavish our attention on our grandbabies without having to worry too much about the consequences. It is something Niamh and I have cherished much more than we ever thought possible – and certainly more than we thought possible when our two still very young offspring had hit us with the big surprise that they were to become parents.
It had been quite the drama at the time, but now none of us can imagine life without her. Adam and Jodie are managing well – both still technically living separately but spending all their free time together in their little family bubble. They have been incredibly sensible and mature about it all. They certainly have more sense in their heads than I did when I became a mother, and I had been almost a decade older.
No, if anything it is Niamh and I are who are likely to be too lax with this little one, because she is just so exceptionally adorable and we have both fallen head over heels in love with her. I still need some shut-eye though.
‘It really is time to go to sleep,’ I coo back at her, daring to make eye contact, much to her delight. ‘Babies need their sleep so they can grow up big and strong and able to take on the world, and you, my dote, are going to take on the world.’
She grins back at me, waving her clenched fists and wriggling as if desperate to make sure I know this is playtime and very much not sleepy time.
‘Your mummy and daddy will have my guts for garters if I undo any of their sleepy time practices,’ I whisper in a sing-song voice, even though I know at Clara’s age any attempts at forming a sleep routine are probably largely pointless.
I, however, have a busy day ahead and really could do with being well rested. There will be a slow start, at least, but onceClara is back in the bosom of her loving family, I will be taking my mother and her elderly neighbour/partner-in-crime Mrs Bishop to Asda to do their big shop. I have tried to convince them both that grocery deliveries are very handy, but they won’t have a bar of it. ‘I like to feel the weight of my food before I buy it,’ my mother said at the weekend, holding her two hands in front of her chest, mimicking weighing up the difference between two turnips, or two melons, and not – as it looked – her boobs.
‘I hear they send you all the stuff that’s on the way out,’ Mrs Bishop said.
‘A bit like ourselves then,’ my mother said with a cackle.
I simply glared. Jokes about my mother one day shuffling off this mortal coil are very strictly verboten. She is well aware of this. It is a touchy subject, and always has been. But it became the touchiest of all subjects after my father had the audacity to die two years ago.
‘It comes to us all,’ she said, with a small smile and a shrug in lieu of an apology.
‘No, Mother. No. It does not. It does not come to you, so less of that talk. I’ll take you to Asda every day of your life if it keeps you here. Weigh that fruit and veg. Feel for ripeness. Sniff it, or lick it for all I care. Just remember that you are not on your way out.’
Yes, there was a hint of hysteria in my voice as I spoke but it’s only because I meant it.
So, this weekly run up the road to the big Asda in Strabane in County Tyrone has become firmly ingrained in my consciousness as a life-saving activity. I dare not miss it.
And once we are back, I have to finish off the article I am writing forNorthern Peoplemagazine about our inaugural Fabulous Forties meeting and try to use my creative flare to ensure itsounds way more successful than it actually was. It’s coming up to one year since I wrote my first column for the magazine, and one year since I decided to try and find myraison d’êtreagain. I need this article to zing. It needs my full attention. The club needs my attention. I need to get people not only talking about it, but coming along to it.
I’ve already sent out an SOS message to Laura, Niamh and Deirdre – as well as to anyone else I could think of – looking for ideas to try to rope more people in. One of our initial plans was that the group would provide back-up for those of us who want to try new things but are too scared to do it alone. Maybe using this approach means we could piggyback off another group’s existing success? It’s a bit cheeky but it might just work. If anyone ever gets back to me, or if my own brain kicks in with a fresh idea.
Standing up, I start to pace around my room doing the gentle bob-and-rock that still seems to come naturally to me. I shush, and coo, and try not to trip over Daniel, who has joined me to pace around my bed and back again. I think the swaying is as much to comfort me as it is Clara, but I know my real focus has to be on getting her back to sleep. Preferably sooner rather than later, so I can get some sleep myself.
I dare not make eye contact again, knowing that the key to settling a baby is to show no weakness. I can sense her stare though. Can feel the wriggle of her little limbs as she tries to play and have fun. I cannot give in. I must stay strong.
‘Time for sleep, baby girl,’ I say in my best, most soothing voice. ‘It’s a school night.’
3
THE FEAR
Laura
It has been almost thirty years since Laura O’Kane felt this kind of fear. There is nothing in the world like it. Even though it is a Thursday night, this is definitely more than a little reminiscent of the Sunday night fear of her youth. It might even be worse. In fact she is pretty sure it is worse.
It might even be worse than any dread about going back to work after a fortnight away in Spain, or even after her maternity leave with her only child – a now seventeen-year-old diva by the name of Robyn. And the toughest thing to swallow about it all is that she chose this for herself. This particular brand of existential dread is one she signed up for of her own free will.
She is no longer legally obligated to go to school. She is not under the age of sixteen and hasn’t been for some considerable time. And yet, here she is about to embark on what she has started to refer to as her ‘learning journey’. Tomorrow she walks into the Magee College campus of Ulster University and registers to start studying for her degree.
She’s aware that ‘learning journey’ sounds cheesy. She was aware of that even before Robyn rolled her eyes to the heavens and made a mock gagging sound. In fact, she only started calling it her learning journey to exact that very response from her teenage daughter. If there was one thing Laura’s powerhouse of a mother, Kitty, had taught her in her far too short time on this earth it was that embarrassing your offspring makes all those hours in labour worthwhile. The gentle teasing that she shares with Robyn now was like an echo of the teasing she had shared with Kitty, and it made missing her a little easier to bear.
It’s hard to think it is already almost a year since Kitty O’Hagan finally succumbed to the cancer that she had been doing her best to defeat for years. Then again, there are many times when Laura thinks,How can it only be a year?In those times it feels so much longer and the ache in her heart still has the power to stop her in her tracks. Those times come when she almost lifts the phone to call her mum. Or when she sees something in the shops she just knows Kitty would love and almost, almost lifts it until the realisation sets in once again. And Kitty would be the first person to tell her to pull herself together and stop her whinging. Sure, hadn’t she, on her deathbed, made Laura promise that she would not spend hours or days weeping and crying over her once she was gone?
‘My wee pet,’ she’d called her with affection, the like of which Laura has never received from any other person. ‘It will be really sad. It will be hard. You will feel broken, and that’s okay. Because I’m pretty amazing.’ Kitty had done her best to wink, her paper-thin skin almost translucent at that stage. ‘But you’re even more amazing. And you’ll know that if I’m not here, then I’m not in pain any more – and I am so done with being in pain. It takes over your life and the life of the people around you. You’ve been so good to me, but you need to be good to yourselfnow. Do the things you always wanted to do. Promise me that, dote. Don’t lose more weeks and months to grief. It’s already taken enough from us all.’
Kitty, if she were here, would be as proud of Laura right now as she had been on the night before her first day in Primary 1. There might not be a uniform to hang out or a Snoopy lunchbox to fill, but Laura can imagine her mum would sit holding her hand and talking through the big adventure that was to come.
‘Now, be nice to all the boys and girls,’ Kitty would say. ‘But not too nice to the boys.’ She’d wink and give a cheeky laugh. ‘Don’t be afraid to answer the questions the teacher asks.’
