Whose Life is it Anyway? Read online

  ‘So you’re not a fan of drink-throwing.’

  ‘Definitely not. I hate couples who argue when they’re out. It makes everyone else uncomfortable. Brigitte thrived on drama. Come to think of it, we really weren’t very suited at all.’

  ‘How did you last so long?’

  ‘We lived in different countries for a lot of it. I suppose that helped.’

  ‘So you fell out of love.’

  ‘Why are asking me about a relationship that’s dead and gone?’

  ‘I’m just curious.’

  ‘Are you satisfied?’

  ‘Have you ever been in love with anyone else?’

  He looked at me and nodded. My heart skipped a beat. ‘Sandra White. She lived across the road and was two years older than me. We snogged on my thirteenth birthday, but then she told me she’d only done it as a dare to see if black boys kissed the same as white boys.’

  I laughed. ‘Poor you.’

  ‘It took me a long time to get over it.’

  ‘Anyone else, apart from Sandra?’

  ‘A couple of girls in university, a girl I met in Greece, an American colleague –’

  I put my hands up. ‘OK, I get it. You’ve been in love a lot.’ I sighed.

  Pierre leant over and took my hand. ‘I’m winding you up. The minute I met you I realized I’d never really been in love before. This is the relationship I’ve been looking for. This is what it’s supposed to be like. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, so can you please stop dredging up the past and getting yourself worked up about nothing?’

  ‘Do you really?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Love me?’

  ‘Yes, darling, I do.’

  ‘Me toooooo,’ I sobbed, as he pulled me into his chest.

  ‘Come here, you fool.’

  ‘I promise I won’t go all boil-the-bunnies if you talk to other women.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

  ‘As long as they’re under thirteen or over sixty,’ I mumbled.

  Pierre loved me! I had never felt so wonderful. I no longer walked, I glided. I had a permanent grin on my face, to the point at which people in the office kept asking me if I was all right. For the first time in my life I felt beautiful. I didn’t look in the mirror and groan. I made more of an effort with my appearance. I wore matching underwear and expensive scented body lotions. I painted my toenails and shaved my legs regularly, instead of seasonally. I felt like a woman and no longer a girl. And it was fantastic.

  We continued to live in our blissful domestic cocoon. Everything was perfect… until my mother rang and said she was coming to Dublin to see me.

  ‘When?’ I asked, beginning to panic.

  I had pushed the fact that Pierre was black to the back of my mind. It didn’t matter to me, it didn’t matter to him, so who cared? My mother would. My mother would care very much. In fact, I knew fine well that she’d blow a fuse when she found out.

  ‘Next weekend. It’s your granddad’s birthday and I haven’t seen you in two months so I’ve booked my flights and I’ll be arriving at ten past five on Friday.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well, you don’t sound very pleased,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry, Mum, I’m just really busy in work.’

  ‘I hope you can find the time for your poor mother.’

  ‘Of course I can. It’ll be great to see you.’

  ‘That’s a bit more like it. Shall I bring anything over for you?’

  ‘No, thanks. I have everything I need.’

  ‘Well, I bought a few bits for your flat, so I’ll bring them with me.’

  ‘What did you buy?’

  ‘A nice lampshade, a shower mat, and your auntie Pauline’s taken up crochet so I’ve six crochet place mats and a tea cosy for you as well.’

  ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘You have to support your relations in their endeavours,’ Mum huffed. ‘She hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet and they’re a bit lopsided, but it’s the effort that counts.’

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, young lady. Besides, you need to brighten up that flat of yours. It’s so small and poky. I’m going to give it a good shake-up when I come over.’

  ‘No!’ I said. Damn. How was I going to explain my new living arrangements?

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t want you wasting your time cleaning my apartment. You’re coming over for a break – and I’m twenty-eight. I can do my own cleaning.’

  ‘Well, miracles do happen.’

  ‘Yes, Mum, they do,’ I said, thinking of Pierre.

  ‘How’s work?’

  ‘Good, thanks.’

  ‘Are you still writing those racy columns?’

  ‘Yes, and they’re not racy, they’re a humorous look at real-life situations.’

  ‘Why don’t you write book reviews or nice articles about gardening?’

  ‘Because I like what I do and I’m good at it. Can we just leave it at that?’

  ‘There’s no pleasing you today, very contrary altogether. Well, I’ll go. Your father and brother are due home any minute and I’ve to put the tea on.’

  ‘How are they?’

  ‘They’re both in good form. Sure I’ll fill you in next week when I see you – I don’t want to run up a big phone bill.’

  ‘OK, ’bye, Mum.’

  I hung up and sighed. How was I going to explain Pierre to Mum? She’d flip. We’d only been together for three months and I really didn’t want to rock the boat or put the relationship under any pressure. This was the best thing that had ever happened to me and I was determined to protect it at all costs. I decided that it was best for Mum not to find out about Pierre yet. I’d tell her about him in a few months’ time.

  My other problem was explaining to Pierre why I didn’t want him to meet my mother. I knew he’d think it was strange, so I did exactly what I shouldn’t have done and stuck my head in the sand.

  That Friday, as Pierre was leaving for work, he said, ‘Let’s go to the movies tonight. I want to see that new Scorsese film.’

  ‘I’m not around.’

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘Yeah, I forgot.’

  ‘What’s on?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing really. My mum’s over and I’m meeting her in my grandparents’ house for dinner.’

  ‘Hold on a minute. Do you mean to say your grandparents live here and you never mentioned it before? And now your mother’s coming over and you forgot to tell me that too?’

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Yes, it is. What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s all very last minute. Mum only rang me last night to say she was coming,’ I lied.

  ‘If my grandparents lived here you’d have met them weeks ago, and if my mother was coming to see me, you’d be the first person I’d want her to meet. So why am I only finding out now?’

  ‘You don’t understand, my family’s not very…’ How was I going to explain tactfully that my family were going to go absolutely ballistic when they found out that my boyfriend was black?

  ‘You mean they won’t be too thrilled when they find out your new squeeze is black.’

  ‘They may need a little time to adjust to that fact.’

  ‘Introducing me to them is the best thing to do. Once they see how much I love you, they’ll come round.’

  ‘The thing is, Pierre, they’re kind of old-fashioned. My dad would freak if I went out with a Protestant, so a black agnostic is going to be tough for him to accept. We need to tread very softly. Trust me.’

  ‘That’s why we need to work on your mother first. I’m great with mothers. They love me. Once we have her on-side, your dad will follow.’

  He just wasn’t getting it. ‘To be honest, my mother isn’t going to like it either. She has high hopes that I’m going to end up with a nice Irish Catholic doctor. You have to let me break it to them very slowly.’

&nbs
p; ‘How slowly?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Hours.’

  ‘I said slowly.’

  ‘Days?’

  ‘Months.’

  ‘Joking?’

  ‘Deadly serious.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Believe me, it’ll be easier in the long run. Let me do it at my own pace. I know my parents and I know how to deal with them. This is going to be a big shock for them.’

  ‘You were born and bred in England. How realistic was the chance of you ending up with an Irish Catholic?’

  ‘I’m the only person in my family – and I have nine married cousins – to live with someone not of Irish descent and Catholic.’

  ‘You mean to tell me that none of your cousins have gone out with non-Irish Catholics?’

  ‘No. One cousin, Dermot, went out with a Swedish girl for a while but it didn’t last. My uncle refused to speak to his son or the Swede until they broke up. He eventually married an Irish Catholic.’

  ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘That’s my family, Pierre. My father and his brothers are obsessed with keeping things traditional. So far, they’ve succeeded.’

  ‘Why move to London? Why not stay in Ireland?’

  ‘There were few opportunities here in the sixties. They emigrated to make a better life. If they could have stayed at home in Ireland they would have.’

  ‘My parents emigrated for a better life too, but they integrated into French and then English society. They didn’t try to create a Martinique ghetto and force their offspring to intermarry.’

  ‘It’s different.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, your parents couldn’t wait to get out of Martinique and never wanted to go back. My father still gets tears in his eyes when he talks of his childhood. He plans to move back to Ireland when he retires. And the other difference is that your parents are both only children.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ asked the only child.

  ‘My father and his four brothers all emigrated and work together. Their wives became friends and we went everywhere with our cousins. It was a ready-made social life. Everyone we knew growing up was Irish, our doctor, dentist, accountant, milkman, butcher. You name it, they were Irish.’

  ‘That defeats the whole purpose of emigrating. You’re not making the most of your new life. You’re not integrating.’

  ‘They don’t see it that way. They think their values, morals and principles are better than anyone else’s and they’re trying to protect their children.’

  ‘But you can’t protect a child from outside influences.’

  ‘You can try very hard.’

  ‘Isn’t it stifling to live that way?’

  ‘Yes and no. On the one hand it’s lovely to have such a big network of people who love you. Whenever anything happens to one person in the family, everyone comes together to help them. You can’t buy that kind of love and loyalty. On the other hand you never get a minute to yourself and it can be claustrophobic and overbearing at times, which is why I left. I needed to breathe by myself.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Australia have been better – further, more adventurous?’

  ‘Yes, but then I wouldn’t have met you.’

  ‘No, but you might have met a nice Australian-Irish Catholic boy, which would have been an easier sell.’

  ‘I’ve never taken the easy road.’

  ‘How difficult is it going to be for them to accept me?’

  ‘Scale of one to ten?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Eleven. But you’re worth it.’

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘Be patient and trust me. I love you and I will tell them all about you. But you have to let me do it my way.’

  ‘OK. But don’t wait too long. I’d like to meet them before I’m old and grey.’

  ‘You are old.’

  ‘OK, grey, then.’

  Irish Daily News

  ‘The Blind Date Set Up’

  Niamh O’Flaherty

  Jane, Fred and Paul are discussing Paul’s upcoming blind date with Fiona. Jane and Fred know Fiona. Paul doesn’t.

  PAUL: ‘What’s she look like?’

  JANE: ‘Oh, she’s lovely. She has the most amazing skin. She tans so easily.’

  PAUL: ‘Skin?’

  FRED: ‘Skin?’

  PAUL: ‘Who gives a toss about skin?Is she a minger?’

  JANE: ‘No! She’s really attractive. And good skin is a huge deal.’

  FRED: ‘No, it isn’t.’

  JANE: ‘Really?’

  PAUL: ‘Trust me, I don’t care about how good a tan she gets.’

  JANE: ‘All that money I’ve wasted on fake tan.’

  PAUL: ‘Is she good in bed?’

  JANE: ‘I don’t know!’

  FRED: ‘She looks a bit gamey. She’s not exactly Angelina Jolie, I’d say she’d be grateful for a shag.’

  PAUL: ‘So she’s a minger who gets a tan in the summer.’

  FRED: ‘No, she’s not a minger, she scrubs up well. Sticky-out ears. Looks a bit like your one in Spiderman.’

  JANE: ‘Kirsten Dunst?No, she doesn’t.’

  FRED: ‘She looks like her uglier sister.’

  PAUL: ‘Uglier sister, your one’s no supermodel.’

  FRED: ‘Nice rack, though.’

  PAUL: ‘I like big tits.’

  JANE: ‘She has the most amazing wrists – they’re tiny.’

  FRED: ‘Wrists?’

  PAUL: ‘Wrists?’

  JANE: ‘It’s incredible, they’re so delicate. She can never find a bracelet small enough to fit her.’

  Fred and Paul look at each other and sigh.

  PAUL: ‘Good legs?’

  FRED: ‘Hockey legs.’

  PAUL: ‘Chunky?’

  FRED: ‘’Fraid so.’

  JANE: ‘She does not have chunky legs. They’re half the size of mine.’

  Silence.

  JANE: ‘Jesus, do I have big fat legs?’

  Silence.

  5

  London, June 1985

  Growing up is difficult enough when you’re not blessed with beauty or brains, but it certainly didn’t help with a father who insisted on re-creating rural Ireland in the middle of London. Trying to fit in and make friends is not easy when your house is a shrine to Ireland. My father thought that if he only allowed his three children to live, breathe and think things Irish, we would somehow be saved from the perils of becoming English.

  We had a tricolour hanging from a flagpole in our garden, the hedge was cut in the shape of a shamrock, we had leprechaun gnomes with fishing-rods sitting round the pond and the doorbell was set to the tune of ‘Danny Boy’.

  We were known as the ‘mad Paddies’. My father spoke Gaelic to us when we were out in public, even though none of us could understand a word he said. Well, my saintly sister Siobhan pretended she understood him, while I begged him to keep his voice down in case anyone heard him.

  ‘You should be proud of your heritage,’ he’d say. ‘You come from the land of saints and scholars. Hold your head high and proclaim your Irishness.’

  It was all very well for him, but I was a fourteen-year-old trying to blend in. Besides, I didn’t feel Irish. I was born and bred in London. England was the only home I had ever known and I liked it. What was the use of learning Gaelic? No one else spoke it. I hated everything Irish. It made us stand out and I was desperate to fit in.

  The problem was that my older sister Siobhan loved all things Irish. She also happened to be good at Irish dancing. In fact, she was brilliant. She’d come second in the Great Britain Irish-dancing Championship the year before and my father had almost burst with pride. He’d kept saying it was the best day of his life, until he felt the weight of my mother’s glare, and added that, of course, his wedding day had been the best day, this was the second best.

  I hated Irish dancing with a passion. It was about as cool as train-spot
ting. You had to wear ridiculous dresses that looked suspiciously like they had been made out of curtains – even Fräulein Maria in The Sound of Music would have had a hard time making dresses as hideous as those.

  Then there was the hair-curling. You had to have ringlets, no matter what. You were forced to sleep with damp hair in curlers with the big pins drilling holes through your skull. No sweet little rags tied in bows like Nellie Olsen in The Little House on the Prairie for us – it was Roller City. When you woke up the next day, in my case with fuzzy clumps of knotted hair from thrashing about in the bed trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, the torture really began. The rollers had to be extracted from the knots, and my mother was not blessed with the patience of a saint or, say, Caroline Ingalls (neighbour of the Olsen family, wife of Charles and mother of Laura, Mary, Albert and Carrie). The rollers were ripped out of my head, pins and lumps of hair in tow, while she huffed and puffed about unruly hair and bloody ringlets.

  You see, secretly my mother hated doing the ringlets and found Irish-dancing competitions very dull, but she knew how much they meant to my father so she played along. I heard her telling my auntie Nuala one day that her idea of a perfect Saturday afternoon was to curl up on the couch with a good book. Instead of which, she spent all her weekends sitting in cold town halls watching curly dancing curtains jump about the stage with their hands pinned to their sides.

  Anyway, while my sister’s hair bounced out of the rollers in perfectly formed ringlets that Shirley Temple would have coveted, mine always hung in limp clumps. So I’d end up having them tied back in an enormous bow (made of the same bright green curtain material as the dress) and then we’d go to the competition. Siobhan, looking angelic, would leap gracefully about the stage, twisting and clicking her legs like Michael Flatley on speed, while I would try to do the same but end up like someone with a bad case of St Vitus’s Dance. I just couldn’t – no matter how hard I tried – keep my hands still. It wasn’t natural and they always flew up as I danced. I also wasn’t blessed with a huge amount of co-ordination, and dancing in general was clearly not my forte. I wasn’t sure what my forte was – if, indeed, I had one – but I was damn sure it wasn’t Irish dancing, and at fourteen years of age, time was running out and I wanted to explore other possibilities.