Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  ‘I don’t,’ I admit. ‘Should I just take them out altogether? Now I’m worried I look underdressed.’

  ‘You’re very het up about the earrings,’ Sadhbh says coyly. ‘Is there any other reason you want to look particularly nice? A … James Matthews reason?’

  I instantly blush and of course the picture goes the clearest it’s been for our entire call.

  ‘Aha, there it is,’ she squeals. ‘How is the handsome devil? Still erecting things all over BGB?’

  James Matthews is the developer who bought and renovated the abandoned building just outside BGB village that houses BallyGoBrunch and the three apartments above it. We’ve been ‘doing a line’ – as my mother mortifyingly called it on the phone to Auntie Sheila recently – since the night I reopened the café after an awful break-in and James literally charmed the knickers off me with his lovely smile, impeccable manners and multi-pocketed work trousers. I blush just thinking about it.

  ‘Ah, look at you. So cute!’ Sadhbh squeals and I nearly pull a muscle in my knees with the cringing. ‘So, what’s the story with you two? He’s sooo nice,’ she continues, pulling a fresh drink in front of her and muttering what I assume is ‘thanks a million’ in Japanese. I advised her to fire up the Duolingo before going and I’m delighted to see she took my advice. Nothing says ‘chic global traveller’ more than being able to order your cervezas in the local tongue. I should know, I’ve been to Spain twice.

  I take a deep breath before answering her. I don’t want to be getting her hopes up. She’s a fierce romantic at heart and I’ve managed to avoid too much chat with her about James so far. ‘There’s no story, really.’

  ‘Ah, go on, there’s always a story. Isn’t he such a ride?’

  He is a ride. She’s right. I still can’t quite believe he fancies me.

  ‘Yes, but there’s really no story. Sure, he’s leaving in a few weeks.’

  ‘Oh nooo, is that still happening?’ Sadhbh looks as dismayed as she sounds.

  ‘Yeah, he’s signed up to that job back in England as soon as the build at Woodlawn Park is finished, and he’s hardly going to stay in BGB for me.’ James has been overseeing the Woodlawn Park housing development in Rathborris for the past six weeks but it’s onto the final phase.

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘No, no, no. It’s just a bit of a …’ I have to pause to make myself choke out Majella’s word for it. ‘… a fling.’

  Sadhbh nearly comes off the chair as the word ‘fling’ leaves my mouth. I don’t really blame her. I’m not exactly the ‘fling’ type. I can definitely count on one hand the number of lads who’ve seen me in the nip. She fumbles with her phone and it’s a moment before her long, elegant neck ricochets back into focus. She’s one of the few Irish women I know who could actually get a tan, but she’s so hell-bent on avoiding wrinkles that she rarely exposes herself to the sun. Such a waste.

  ‘A fling. In Ballygobbard. I’ve heard it all now,’ she says, composing herself. ‘Would you not try make it work long distance or something, though – no? He was so mad about you that night you got together. It seems like such a shame.’

  I feel like if James was into trying long distance, he would have said something already, and it’s not like I can ask him to stay. I don’t know if I can even imagine him staying at this stage anyway. I’ve known about his work commitments from the get-go. He told me the morning after we first got together that he had work lined up back at home. He said he’d love to keep seeing me even though it might not be a good idea since he wasn’t going to be there that much longer. He was so noble saying it that I felt like I was in one of Majella’s bodice-ripping novels. I was weak for him. But he’s leaving and I can’t be a goose about it. And I’m certainly not moving to England, although I do enjoy the challenge of a currency exchange. BallyGoBrunch is taking off so well and is so hectic and I barely have time to fit James in as it is. Sadhbh is right about him seeming mad about me though. We went to the new cinema in Knocknamanagh the other night and we were like teenagers – not that I’d ever done anything of the sort as a teenager, seeing as there was no cinema within a twenty-mile radius. The new Knock cinema has only one screen and seventeen seats and has been showing the same film since it opened three weeks ago, but it’s quiet and dark so we could shift in the back row with no eyes on us. Mammy asked me what the film was about the next day and I had to make up something ludicrous about Tom Cruise punching a shark. Mammy has only been to the cinema three times since the nineties and two of those were Mamma Mia films so it’s easy enough to cod her. Meanwhile, I’ve stayed in James’s place for the past –

  ‘Five nights in a row Majella says you stayed with him this week. You’re mad about him too,’ Sadhbh teases. Bloody Majella and her big mouth. James lives in one of the apartments above BallyGoBrunch and on the floor above him is the entire Moran clan, plus Pablo and Willy, their Jack Russell. They’re squashed into the two-bed apartment while they’re waiting for their family home to be habitable again after the fire. The things I’ve heard through the ceiling. My BallyGoBrunch business partner Carol Boland’s place is across the hall from James. It’s all very, very cosy. A bit too cosy. But it’s just hard to resist James when I go up to his apartment to say hello after closing the café and he has the two glasses out for the wine. It’s a bit exciting, this fling business. And it’s nice to have someone to cuddle up beside. It was one of the main things I missed about John – falling asleep with my head on his chest watching The Office. No better feeling.

  ‘I’ll say no more about it now.’ Sadhbh finally cops via my silence that I’m not giving her anything more on the James topic. ‘But you’re seeing him every night of the week and I think you’re really going to miss him and you’ll regret letting him go when he leaves. That’s all.’ She waves her hand across her face in an ‘I’m done’ motion and I breathe a sigh of relief and hope that she’s wrong. ‘God, there’s nothing like a good fling, though, is there?’ she adds. ‘So wrapped up in each other, counting each other’s freckles.’

  My freckles are a great source of torment to me. How could she? ‘What’s going on with the house,’ I say, determined to change the subject,

  ‘The builder is in now. Hallelujah!’ She whoops and raises her drink in the air, and I can just imagine the Japanese taking pictures of this mad Irishwoman to send to their friends and aunties. Sadhbh and Don had been in a bidding war on an old fixer-upper in Dublin for when he eventually gets off tour. Last I heard she’d been on the phone to the estate agent for three hours going up in €50 increments. Her strategy to annoy the other bidders into submission must have worked.

  ‘Ah, Sadhbhy, I’m delighted for you! When will you be moving in?’

  ‘The renovation should be all done and dusted by Christmas.’

  ‘Ah, what a present! I can’t wait to see it!’

  ‘Speaking of presents,’ she’s adopted a coy tone again, ‘what do you want for your thirtieth?’

  ‘Ah, nothing, nothing. I want no fuss,’ I say, shaking my head vigorously and meaning it.

  ‘It’s your thirtieth! Of course I’m getting you something.’ Sadhbh smiles. ‘Do you know who buys great presents, I bet? James Matthews.’

  My eyes fall on the two Pandora bracelets in the jewellery box. Both identical and both from John, two Christmases apart. Not his finest moment, gift-wise. I choose to ignore Sadhbh’s hint about James and she mercifully carries on.

  ‘And Majella says you’re not having a party? Not even a night out?’

  ‘No, I’m grand. No fuss. I’ve enough to be doing.’

  My birthday. My thirtieth birthday. It’s next month and I have no interest in it. It’s such a grown-up number and half the time I still feel like I’m a teenager asking Daddy for lifts and lusting over Shayne Ward with Majella. She wrote Shayne so many letters she got a solicitor’s one back. She framed it. And now Maj is engaged and Sadhbh and Don have their house and I’m back living at home with my mother,
involved with a too-good-to-be-true man who’s about to leave. I suppose I’m just not where I thought I’d be and I’d rather not draw attention to it. Plus, life has been hectic these past few years and I definitely thought Daddy would be at my thirtieth making sure nobody gave me the bumps. It’s a good job, really, that I’m single and nowhere near getting married. The thought of walking up the aisle without him … No, I’m going to keep the head down and maybe buy an eye cream.

  ‘Are you sure, Aisling?’ Sadhbh cajoles. ‘You should mark it. Thirty is a milestone. You had Pablo jump out of a cake for Majella’s.’

  I thought he’d be wearing more clothes to be quite honest.

  ‘I’m sure. I don’t think I’m quite ready to accept being thirty, Sadhbhy.’

  Sadhbh brings the phone up close to her face. ‘You’re a successful businesswoman, you’ve looked after your mum, you’ve great friends and you’ve scored the most eligible bachelor in town. I’d say that’s pretty good going heading into a new decade.’

  I blush again and begin my ‘stop that now’s and my ‘bye, bye, bye-bye, bye’s but as I look around my childhood bedroom, I can’t help feel like turning thirty single and in a single bed just isn’t worth celebrating.

  2

  ‘Ah you’ll have to do something Aisling,’ Sharon calls behind her as we elbow our way back from the bar in Maguire’s which is completely rammed, a sea of county jerseys. ‘Thirty is a milestone, like.’

  Is there something in the water today or what? First Sadhbh, now Sharon, and just an hour ago I got an email from a gym I joined four years ago when I was working in PensionsPlus, reminding me once again that my birthday is hurtling towards me. I had to pack it in at that gym after just one Pilates class, which I signed up for thinking it would be lovely and gentle to ease me into my new life as a fitness fanatic. I was expecting to lie around in a room festooned with linen curtains, maybe with some candles and whale song in the background while I imagined wheat fields and natural yoghurt. Instead I was tortured for forty-five minutes and couldn’t walk for four days. I had to pretend I was happy to work through lunch at my desk because getting up out of the chair was such an ordeal. Gwyneth Paltrow has a lot to answer for. I’m still tormented by the three months’ membership I lost on that gym, but after needing the help of the Pilates instructor and the gazelle beside me to get up off the ground, I could never go back.

  ‘Carol will do you a cake,’ Sharon says, setting the drinks down on the table and nodding at Carol, who nods back enthusiastically. She does a great cake, to be fair to her.

  ‘What time are the lads due in at?’ Sharon asks, pushing her voluminous blonde curls back over her shoulder. She’s a wizard with the GHD but I suppose she wouldn’t be BGB’s foremost (and only) beauty-salon owner without the skills. In the few months I’ve known her, I could count on one hand the times I’ve seen her less than 100 per cent glam, and this evening is no exception. I could never get away with the tight red dress she has on under her jersey. My hips have always been a great trial to me, but Sharon shows off her ample curves like a pro.

  ‘Seven, I think. Any sign of Majella?’ I crane my neck looking for my best friend but instead catch an eyeful of Mad Tom up at the bar, top off again. It is warm, even by September standards, and outside the village is a riot of colour thanks to the bunting taut between telephone poles and the incredible job the Tidy Towns committee did with this year’s hanging baskets. I must remember to pass on my congratulations to Tessie Daly. There’s an ice-cream van doing a roaring trade outside Strong Stuff, Sharon’s beauty salon, and Eamon Filan has speakers in front of the newsagents-slash-funeral-parlour pumping out the nineties dance hits. The atmosphere is electric and the kids are all up to ninety, dabbing and whatnot. It’s almost as exciting as the time a horse trainer from outside Knock won the Grand National and they closed Main Street for a full day to parade Dexy’s Midnight Galloper through the town. The poor horse had to go into retirement it was so wrecked. Still, though, a mighty day.

  As I scan the pub for Maj, I’m keeping an eye out for James too. He said he’d probably head in for the festivities with some of the lads from the building site and for some reason I’m feeling anxious. We haven’t done a whole heap of socialising together in BGB, and if my hand was forced I’d have to say I’m just not that keen on being seen out and about with him. I don’t need people thinking we’re a big serious item, especially when everyone is so mad about him and his manners. Me and John’s break-up was big news and I don’t want the Bowls Club and the entire Zumba with Mags class talking about us and feeling sorry for me when James is gone.

  ‘Was it busy today, Carol?’ I ask, relaxing back into my seat, no sign of either Majella or James. I took today off from BallyGoBrunch at Carol’s insistence after working twelve days in a row and then going straight from behind the counter to Croke Park for the match yesterday.

  ‘A steady stream.’ Carol nods. ‘We ran out of sausage baps at the takeaway counter and Noel grated his knuckles into the coleslaw but no other emergencies.’

  She’d deny it but Carol and her secret sausage recipe are the real reason BallyGoBrunch is such a roaring success, if you ask me. She battled with her bully husband over that recipe and now both she and it are free of him, Carol Boland Sausages are trademarked and the recipe is patent pending. I’m a 49 per cent stakeholder in CBS and we sell so many packets of them in the café that we’ve outsourced their production to a small factory in Kildare. Carol is delighted with their standards and it’s freed up a good bit of space in the fridge. The space in the fridge is one of many things that wakes me up worrying in the dead of night. That and Noel the kitchen porter’s knuckles in the coleslaw. In fairness, Noel works brilliantly alongside Carol and we’re delighted with Karla, our new front-of-house whizz kid from Rathborris. She has a real way with people and is great for upselling desserts, and she gives me a bit more time to spend in the office wrangling invoices and wages and orders for our new catering sideline – wakes, Confirmations, twenty-firsts. You name it, we’ll cater it.

  ‘Oh, thank Christ, there you are!’ Majella’s hand comes snaking through the throng surrounding our table and she grabs my arm and pulls herself towards me like she’s clawing her way out of quicksand. She’s managed to keep an impressive hold on a pint she must have acquired along the way.

  ‘You made it!’

  She looks very shook. ‘I almost didn’t get into the town at all. The Tidy Towns committee are on perimeter security detail and I nearly had to show Murt Kelly my passport to get through the cordon.’

  ‘Is Murt Kelly not your godfather?’

  ‘He is. The power went to his head. He wouldn’t let Dr Maher into his own driveway. And I’m nearly sure I saw Tessie Daly frisking Billy Foran.’ Majella winces as she rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet. ‘I didn’t even get a chance to get home and change out of my work gear. I don’t know how much longer I can wear court shoes for, Ais. Bunions run in my family, you know?’

  Majella’s the new deputy principal at St Anthony’s in Santry and went completely berserk buying work suits and pencil skirts in Dunnes so she looks the part. She’s already gone through seventeen pairs of American Tan tights and school is only back a week. She said Pablo hid in the en suite for half an hour after she put her fingers through three pairs in one morning, such was her rage.

  Sharon and Carol shove up on their bench and she goes to sink in beside them, but changes her mind and stands up on it instead, roaring over the heads towards the bar. ‘A round please, Felipe. Working women over here in need of a drink.’

  I just about stop myself from reminding her it’s Monday and a literal school night tonight for her. Although, even though she’s only just back, she seems to be making a real go of this new role. She did some serious prep over the summer and is flat out organising sub teachers and making sure she can still leave early enough to catch the four o’clock Timoney’s bus Down Home every day. She buys Double Deckers for Tony Timoney t
o keep him sweet so he’ll wait for her if she’s a few minutes late. If you miss the four o’clock you’ve to wait for Tony to drive all the way down to BGB and all the way back to Dublin to collect you.

  Felipe makes a gesture that looks rude but, not being Brazilian, we can’t be sure. He’s very proud of his culture so we never question him. He roars back at her. ‘We are all working, pequeño. Wait your turn.’

  Majella brandishes one court shoe at him and he holds up his hands in mock defeat and starts putting our order together.

  ‘Any sign of Pablo?’ Majella says, scanning the pub as she sinks down. According to Sharon, Pablo actually passed through Maguire’s like a whirlwind just before I arrived, grabbing as many bodies as he could. He was shrieking something about crowd control and Murt Kelly, which now makes much more sense. Pablo’s very impressionable and Murt must have put the frighteners up him. I suppose you can’t be too careful when it comes to public safety. I was once at a free St Patrick’s Day Brian Kennedy performance up in Dublin and I’m amazed there weren’t fatalities when he threw his leprechaun hat into the crowd. I nearly had the ankles taken off me by a girl from Ballina who kept screaming that he was her second cousin once removed. Daddy had warned me to mind my bag and keep my wits about me when he dropped me and my cousin Doireann off, but I wasn’t expecting a near-death experience. I wonder if Sadhbh and The Peigs are dealing with similar madness in Japan – knickers walloping them in the face and what have you.

  ‘We’ll have to head out after this one, Ais.’ Majella nudges me with an American Tan toe. I’ve been invited onto the VIP viewing platform on Main Street for when the heroes arrive and I’m bringing Maj as my guest. She was at me to bring James, but the thought of parading him on a literal stage is just too much. Mammy would be straight into Geraldine’s Boutique for a hat and I had enough ‘when’s the Big Day’ chats when I was with John to last me a lifetime. Majella, my platonic life partner, will do the job just fine.