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  “You look awfully pale, sweetheart,” she said, reaching over and pushing an auburn curl from my face.

  “That’ll be the hangover, Anna. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sure you will. Now, on you go and phone Joe while Her Royal Highness sleeps and I’ll do this list out properly. I’m sure I have some highlighter pens somewhere.”

  *****

  Joe answered after two rings. He was obviously in efficient mode this morning.

  “Hey, big bro,” I started, figuring if I kept it light-hearted he would be less likely to go off the deep end at me.

  “Aoife, how’s the head?”

  I couldn’t really tell what mood he was in from his voice. Was it that he had just given up on me?

  “It’s better now. Look, Joe, I’m sorry. I’ve been a fecking eejit. I’m going to make this better – with everyone. I promise. I’m going to show you all I can do this.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said.

  “I mean it, Joe. It’s going to be different.”

  “Okay, Aoife, I believe you.”

  I could hear his smile from the other end of the phone. He always did like to humour me. I knew I would have to show it, not just say it.

  As the lady from Fame says, this was where I was going to start paying, in blood.

  I hung up and dialled Mum.

  “McLaughlin residence,” a very polite voice answered.

  “Mum, it’s me.”

  “Aoife,” she said, flatly, all airs and graces gone.

  “I thought maybe we could meet up,” I started.

  “I’m very busy, Aoife. I’m doing the flowers at the chapel today.”

  “Maybe I could call up, show Maggie where her granny and granda were married.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath. I don’t know if it was at the notion that I would dare show my unmarried mother of a self in the House of God or that I had referred to her as Maggie’s granny.

  “I’m not sure, Aoife. The chapel is very cold these days. Father Forbes has cut the heating bill. The baby might get too cold.”

  It was not lost on me that she didn’t use Maggie’s name.

  “She’ll be all wrapped up warm. Her pram is really very cosy,” I continued.

  “Aoife, maybe another time. We have the Bishop coming to say Mass this weekend. There’s lots to be done. I wouldn’t be able to give you the time of day.”

  I knew there was no point pushing it. She was ashamed. Making her feel that shame more acutely by arriving at the chapel with my baby in tow wouldn’t help her forgive me. I felt tears spring to my eyes.

  “Maybe I’ll call round to the house later then, Mum?”

  “Maybe. I’ll phone you when I’m back. Honestly, Aoife, I’ve so much on.”

  She hung up and at that moment Anna appeared with a colour-coded chart at the door.

  “Ta-daa!” she announced, twirling around.

  I burst into tears.

  Fecking dirty bastard hormones.

  Anna glanced down at the phone in my hand. It didn’t take psychic ability for her to realise by the look on my face that whoever I’d just spoken to hadn’t been receptive to whatever it was I said.

  “Was that your mum?” she asked and I nodded, letting out a snottery sob.

  “Now come on. No one said this was going to be easy, but our family aren’t quitters and I’m not going to let you fall at the first hurdle. Get up, get your coat on and put that wain in her car seat. We are going for a wee drive.”

  “But it’s not ‘go out for a wee drive’ time,” I said, staring at her colour-coded chart.

  “Read the small print, sweetheart,” she said and sure enough there at the bottom, in her cursive writing was an addendum: “All activities are subject to change for whatever reason Anna deems fit.”

  I let out a laugh, and looked at the strong, amazing woman in front of me. How was it possible she was in any way related to my mother?

  *****

  We got in the car and drove to Moville, a seaside down on the Donegal coastline with a breath-taking scenic walk.

  “We need to get some colour in your cheeks,” Anna said, assembling the pram in the car park. “We’ll have a walk along here and then stop by the chipper for a bag of chips clattered in salt and vinegar when we are done.”

  “Won’t Maggie get cold?” I asked, slipping on my gloves.

  “Sure she’s snug as a bug in a rug in there. She’ll be fine.”

  “Mum thought she would catch pneumonia from being in the cold chapel.”

  Anna rolled her eyes. “Your mum always was a fecking drama queen.”

  We started our walk, along the familiar concrete path of my childhood. The sky was dark and heavy with the late February clouds. The sea swirled before us, grey and commanding, and it dawned on me how my situation meant nothing – not in the grand scheme of things. I glanced over to Anna, saw her staring out at the water and knew she felt the same.

  “I used to come here all the time when Billy died,” she started. “The house seemed really claustrophobic, so I would strap Maeve in the car and the two of us would walk along here together. Or I would get a sitter and come down here myself. I would take a seat over there,” she said, pointing to the old changing rooms, “and stay for hours, just staring out at the sea. When it was really windy. When it all felt too much it was great. I could scream out to the waves and let it all out.”

  I imagined her, sitting there alone and I felt a tear spring to my eye.

  “You know,” she said, moving closer to me as if she were about to impart some big secret, “one night I was here wailing and moaning when I heard an old man shout out. I damn near gave him a heart attack. He thought the banshee was coming for him.”

  She laughed, linked her arm in mine, and we walked on. “It’s amazing what you can survive – what you can laugh about later.” We walked on, feeling the breeze whip around our faces for half an hour before turning and walking back to the Foyle Hotel where we ordered two coffees and I started to feed a now wide-awake Maggie.

  “She’s just precious,” the waitress cooed.

  “She sure is,” Anna answered.

  “You do right to be proud. My mammy is the same with my wee man. She loves being a granny too,” the waitress said before walking off.

  “Jesus Christ, she has me a granny and there was me thinking I didn’t look a day over twenty-one, Lord save us,” Anna laughed with a wink.

  “Get used to it. You might be the only granny this wee one ever knows.”

  For the first time my heart didn’t sink at the thought.

  

  Chapter 19

  Aoife

  We were just running a bath for Maggie, the papers of our food from the chippy now in the bin, when we heard the door open.

  “Let me see her, where is she?” a high-pitched and excited voice shouted around the house.

  “Upstairs, love!” Anna called and we heard what sounded like a troop of elephants thunder up the staircase and into the bathroom.

  Maggie, relatively non-responsive to anyone or anything until now, opened her eyes wide and gazed straight at Maeve as if she were totally mad.

  “Oh. My. God. Aoife, she’s totally class! She is amazing! Can I lift her?”

  Maeve, always the whirlwind, didn’t wait for my reply before lifting Maggie up over her head and twirling her round.

  “Maeve Mary O’Donnell, would you calm down!” Anna chided, failing to hide her pleasure at seeing her gorgeous daughter. “The wain will throw up on you, and besides weren’t you supposed to call around yesterday?”

  “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Maeve answered breathlessly. “It’s just she is so gorgeous. Well done, Aoife! I bet the father is a pure ride.”

  I nearly choked and Anna nearly had a coronary.

  “Maeve, that’s enough of that talk!” her mother scolded.

  “It’s okay,” I laughed. “He’s not bad as it happens. Just a co
mplete arse, but pretty hot in the looks department.”

  “You can tell,” Maeve enthused. “I mean you are quite pretty, but she is a wee stunner.” She looked at Maggie, tickling her tummy. “Yes, oo are, yes, oo are! Oo are so gorgeous!”

  “Careful, Maeve, everyone will wonder if you’re taking the notion yourself,” I chided.

  “God no. I love babies, but not for me, not yet. I can’t even look after myself. Fair fucks to you, Aoife!”

  “Language!” Anna said, her voice raised.

  “Sorry, Mammy, I’ll calm down, honest.”

  But it wasn’t in Maeve’s manner to calm down. She was a one-woman whirlwind and at twenty-three showed no signs whatsoever of calming down into adult life. I have to say, I admired that about her.

  “I’m starved,” she said, distracted from Maggie by her rumbling stomach, “I’m away to get a sarnie. See you three babes in a few minutes.”

  You couldn’t help but smile when Maeve was in the room and at least now, in this space, I felt totally accepted and loved.

  I smiled at Anna. “You should be very proud of her.”

  “What, with that language? Her father would be spinning in his grave!”

  “Sure she does no harm. It’s nice to see her so confident and happy.”

  “I suppose. I shouldn’t complain,” said Anna. “Now let’s get Miss Tissy here a bath.”

  I sat back and watched her hands tenderly wash my daughter, the gentle way in which she wet her hair and soaped her down and I felt contented for the first time in a long time.

  HHH

  Just before I went to bed, I phoned Mum. She may have put me off seeing her in the church, but seeing Anna and Maeve together – their effortless bond – made me realise that I couldn’t walk away on this relationship.

  She answered the phone, her voice tired.

  “Mum,” I started, “I’m going to bring Maggie around tomorrow morning. I’ll bring the buns and we’ll see you around eleven.”

  She made to protest, to come up with some excuse, so I said a quick goodbye and hung up. I was not going to give her the chance to tell me no, or to shun me again.

  Then I phoned Beth, just to check on the shop and Matilda. She sounded tired too.

  I was sure the pressure of taking care of the business, with just Heather for company, was getting to her. A few of the clients she was dealing with were very demanding. That and keeping everything else ticking over was bound to be stressful.

  It was clear that I couldn’t spend forever here in Derry, not when the business needed me, so I made a resolution to myself that Mum would listen to me the following day. Now all I had to do was think about what exactly I was going to make her listen to.

  Tired as I was, those thoughts played on my mind throughout the night. As I got up to feed and change Maggie, I looked into her darkest blue eyes and thought of all the things I was going to have to tell her granny come morning.

  Things about me, and Jake and my life in London. Things about sex. Things about getting pregnant and being pregnant and then not being pregnant any more. Things that any normal daughter should talk to her mother about (well maybe, with the exception of the sex thing). It troubled me.

  HHH

  I wasn’t a victim. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Yes, I hoped Jake would fall in love with me but, while he didn’t, I enjoyed the down and dirty – the pure filthy no-holds-barred passion of him. Being Catholic and Irish, I know I’m not really supposed to admit to that but, my God, at times the man made me feel like the most sexually irresistible woman on the planet.

  The first time I met his friends, I’d made an effort. My hair was glossy, curled and hanging loosely around my face. I wore a white cotton gypsy-style top, with a red flowing skirt which swished around my tanned ankles and made me feel so very feminine.

  It was a hot summer’s day and when I walked into the pub, and took off my cardigan, I felt Jake’s eyes on me. His friends nodded, smiled and said hello, but Jake just looked at me, his eyes dark with lust and I felt a surge of warmth in the very pit of my stomach. I walked to him, kissed him gently on the cheek and said my hellos. I felt in control as I walked to the bar to get a glass of wine. I could almost sense him walk up behind me, and then I felt him wrap his arm around my waist.

  “How are you?” I said.

  He took my hand, moved it downwards to his crotch and I could feel him, hard and hot, and although he didn’t speak any words, I knew he wanted me there and then.

  If I’m honest, I wanted him too. I wanted him so much it took my breath away and as we stood staring at each other in that busy bar I could hear and see nothing but him.

  We shagged in the toilets that night. It was hardly high romance, but it was passionate. I’ll give him that. Jake did passion well. Perhaps though, thinking about it, my mother never needed to know about that particular episode.

  HHH

  I woke hot and flustered, the thought of that first encounter with Jake replaying in my mind. Was it really only ten days ago that I promised myself I would never, ever touch another man again? My God, I still had to wash myself down with warm water when I peed to stop the stitches stinging – how could I even contemplate sex? And what good would it do me anyway when I had no man willing to oblige?

  No, I had to clear those thoughts from my mind pretty damn quick smart. I had a mother to see, and I was pretty sure she had a sensor that could tell if I’d had any impure thoughts in the preceding twenty-four hours.

  My mother is the queen of routine. Her mornings start the same, and vary only depending on whether it’s a Sunday (Mass) or Tuesday or Friday (the Derry Journal is out).

  On those days she’s out of the house that wee bit earlier. If it’s a Sunday, she leaves just in time to get the front pew in the chapel she has lovingly spent the week cleaning.

  If it’s a Journal day she is down at the newsagent’s before nine – just so she can see who has died or who has been up in court. The morning is never complete for Mum without the latest gossip. As a teenager I’d hear her rattling about as I tried to sleep in – my duvet pulled over my head. At six forty-five the bathroom door would slam and by six fifty she’d be downstairs and the familiar whistle of the kettle would screech up the stairs, invading my sleep.

  By five past seven, after a battering of cups and plates at a level that would have woken the dead never mind a stroppy teenager, she would holler up the stairs at me and Joe to get ready for school. We were always ready half an hour early. This gave us time to do our chores or, if she was feeling particularly close to God, a quiet round of the Rosary.

  By the time 10 o’clock came, she would have the house spick and span and be sitting down to her second cup of tea, some daytime telly or a read of the paper.

  I knew, then, if I timed it just right and arrived with Maggie in tow at about ten thirty (enough time to clear away the cups and dust down the biscuit crumbs) she would be free to give us her undivided attention.

  At the same time, the thought of having my mother’s undivided attention was not something I relished. It rarely proved a positive experience.

  Taking a five-minute break from my feelings of impending doom, I nipped upstairs and phoned Beth once again.

  “Instant Karma, Beth speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Hey, babes,” I started, “promise me you will give Matilda a good home if my mother kills me and buries me under the patio. Likewise, promise me you will visit me often if I kill her and bury her under the patio.”

  Beth laughed. “You’ll be fine, honest. Look, you have dealt with worse than this. Remember the time Janet Hetherington went off on one because she wanted forest green in the dining- room and you ordered sage? You talked her round then. If you can manage that, you can manage anything.”

  “You have a point, but she could be bribed with the promise of a complementary water feature to Feng-Shui her room a little. I wonder what I could bribe my mother with?”

  “You’ve got Maggie.
You don’t need to bribe her any further. How is my little treasure anyway?”

  “She’s lying here on the bed beside me, cooing at nothing. I can’t believe how much she is growing, Beth. She more pudgy than wrinkly these days.”

  Beth sighed. “Sweetheart, you are so lucky.”

  “Yep, a single mother with a family who hates her and an ex who doesn’t want to know. I’m the luckiest gal on the planet,” I deadpanned, then I looked at my daughter – this bundle of pink. “I know, Beth. Honestly, I know I’m lucky. I’m sorry if I don’t show it all the time.”

  “I’m sure it’s hard work too. Look, Aoife, someone has just come into the shop. Heather is on her coffee break so I’ll have to go. Good luck with your mum.”

  HHH

  When we arrived at my mother’s house, I saw my father’s car was gone. There would be no safety cushion this time.

  “Do you want me to come in with you, love?” Anna asked, sensing my discomfort.

  “Nope, it will be fine. I think it’s best I do this alone.”

  I lifted Maggie and we walked to the door. Even though I had a key, it felt wrong to use it, so I rang the doorbell. My mother simply nodded at us when she answered the door – opening just enough for us to come in and then returning to the living-room where she sat on the sofa. There was a fire burning in the hearth, but there was little warmth in the room. Maggie started to whimper. A quick look at the clock let me know it was time for her feed.

  “You don’t mind if I feed her, do you?” I asked.

  “The kettle’s in the kitchen and the glass jug is beneath the sink if you need to heat a bottle.”

  “It’s okay, I’m breast-feeding,” I replied, discreetly latching a hungry Maggie onto my boob.

  My mother looked stunned. “I wouldn’t have expected you to breast-feed,” she said eventually. Knowing my mother, she would have expected me to leave the child to her own devices and forage in bins.

  “It gives her the best start,” I answered confidently.

  “It takes more than breast milk to give a child a good start,” she said, nose in the air.