‘Excuse me, sir,’ I say – realising I can indeed use the word ‘sir’ perfectly well and without blushing in non-sexual situations – ‘can you tell me what is going on? This is my mother and her friend!’
‘Ah, Rebecca,’ my mother scolds, her laughter gone. ‘You just ruined our take!’
‘Your what?’
As Mrs Bishop descends even further into the giggles, my mother points behind me to where a smiling staff member is holding a phone – my mother’s phone if I’m not mistaken – and pointing it in our direction.
‘Our take. Jimmy here’ – she nods to the security man – ‘and Maggie there were helping us out.’
‘These two are some craic,’ Jimmy says, his stern expression from before replaced with a wide smile. Maggie, still holding the phone up and recording, responds from twenty feet away with a thumbs-up.
‘Will I stop filming now, Roisin?’ she asks, as if she’s Stephen Spielberg’s second in command.
‘I think we need to take it from the top if you don’t mind,’ my mother replies.
‘I don’t mind at all.’ Maggie looks utterly delighted to be doing something that doesn’t involve stacking shelves or tidying up racks of clothes left in a state by eager shoppers.
‘You know, I don’t think she got my best side the last time,’ Jimmy says as they turn to walk back to their starting position, leaving me standing in the middle of the shop floor wondering if this is actually real or if I’m just in some sort of fever dream.
When I get back to my table, my coffee and the remainder of my caramel square have been cleared away. Although I know I left them unattended, and it was completely reasonable for the café staff to assume I had just cleared off, I am still so shocked that this discovery is enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I slump into my seat, looking at the table in front of me, barren save for a few of the crumbs I had sprayed across it when I thought I might die, and I try my very best not to spiral further.
I must remember that feelings are not facts.
I must examine the evidence as I see it in front of me.
Conal had been his usual, jokey self. Would he have been his usual jokey self if he was, in fact, planning on dumping me? Surely I would have some inkling myself that things are on the rocks. After all, I had done with Simon. While his departure still came with its own share of shock and disbelief, once the dust had settled I was able to admit to myself and others that I’d probably spent the last three to four years of our marriageexpecting this outcome. We weren’t miserable, we just weren’t happy. And yes, it would’ve been so much nicer if he had approached the whole thing like an adult instead of escaping into the sunset and finding a replacement but… it wasn’t a total shock.
Conal is different though. Conal makes me happy and I thought I made him happy too. If my mother wasn’t putting on an Oscar-worthy performance in the knitwear aisle of Asda I would sit her across from me and demand she talk sense into me until my spiral stops spiralling – but I don’t want to ruin her fun day out and budding influencer career just yet.
Okay, I think. I can call Laura. She will reassure me that her brother still loves me and all is good. She might even phone him and ask for insider info on the big chat. But as I’m lifting my phone to call her, I remember that today is her first day at uni and the last thing she needs is me having a breakdown at her over the phone. So, instead, I tap in a quick ‘Hope your morning is going well’ message and then sit back and wonder who else I can possibly turn to. Niamh – my wonderful, beautiful friend Niamh – will most likely be in the classroom herself imparting her knowledge of all things scientific to young people who, if she is to be believed, have no attention span, let alone any interest in osmosis, or the life cycle of a caterpillar.
Still, I know my wonderful, beautiful Niamh enough to know that she is also never very far away from her phone and loves a little middle-of-the-day gossip to keep her from – in her own words – ‘wanting to yeet herself off the top of the school building’. I tap out a message:
Niamh, we have a code red… or brown maybe. For when the brown stuff hits the fan. Conal has said ‘we need to talk’. I’m getting dumped, aren’t I? I was so stupid to think this could work and that he would really be interested in me. I’m not sure I can take it. Will I have to start listening to Taylor Swift? Do you think Fiadh would loan me her CDs?
I am blessed with the beep of a quick reply and I glance at my phone.
CDs? We’re not in the early 2000s now! I’m not sure Fiadh even knows what a CD is! But I’m sure your goddaughter will be only too happy to make you a playlist on Spotify and share it with you. Chin up. Conal loves you. There will be no dumping. Gotta go… the wee shites in Year 8 are at the Bunsen burners. I swear they get worse each year.
I am reassured but also a little horrified by Niamh’s message. Yes, of course I know no one uses CDs any more… Don’t I? I still have mine. Not that I have a CD player any more, but I digress. I read the ‘There will be no dumping’ portion of the message again and try to burn it into my brain. And if Niamh is wrong, I can always join her and Year 8 in some sort of Bunsen burner-ageddon. It will be the least I deserve for trusting my stupid heart again.
6
METHUSELAH WAS BUT A BABY
Laura
According to the fable, Methuselah, the oldest man to ever live, died at the age of 969. Laura is pretty sure that the majority of the students surrounding her would consider him a young thing in comparison to her.
She looks, and feels, out of place. They are there in their baggy jeans and figure-hugging crop tops with their Converse and their oversized hoodies, or flannel shirts with frayed cuffs, and she, on the other hand, is wearing one of her beloved wrap dresses from Boden along with her very favourite red patent Mary Jane flats. Robyn warned her against wearing white trainers, even though Laura loves white trainers, because – in her daughter’s words – ‘that look is so mid’. According to Robyn that means it’s just not cool and she may in fact look as if she trying too hard and instead falling into the middle-aged-woman conformity trap of midaxi dress, white trainers and denim jacket.
Laura does not see anything wrong with that particular look.It’s comfortable. It also hides a multitude of sins – including the dreaded peri-menopausal bloat. Trainers are like a soft embrace for the feet of all the Generation X women who almost crippled themselves wearing heels on every possible occasion through their late teens up to their mid-thirties. And a denim jacket is effortlessly cool. Isn’t it?
Robyn was not having a bit of it, however, and fought her corner with the passion and zeal only a seventeen-year-old who has no knowledge of how the real world actually works can possess.
The Mary Janes were the compromise. But now, instead of feeling confident in her appearance and her sense of style, she feels every bit as ‘mid’ as Robyn told her she would be.
