Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  ‘They’re in a bowl. And I did some cucumber too, just in case. Relaaax, Ais. They’re all on the bar cart.’

  The fourth ‘relax’ sets my teeth on edge and I spy a patch of concrete dust on the edge of the couch and go for it with my hand, whacking it far longer than necessary.

  The bar cart was my idea. I saw it mentioned in House and Home magazine as a ‘must-have’ for any party so I immediately ordered one online. So far we have three different bottles of gin, a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Tia Maria on it, as well as the lemons and cucumber and just the one basket. The Tia Maria is for Cyclops – he won’t drink anything else. I got six litres of milk as well.

  ‘Oh, you can tell your mum I’ve made a start on her scarecrow. State of the art, it’s going to be. I’ve done my research.’

  God bless him. He’s taking it so seriously. I accept the drink he’s handing to me and resolve to go easier on him. ‘I’m sure she’s going to love it.’

  I go to the front door and look into the apartment, pretending to be someone else, not the person who’s been hoovering and dusting it all evening and artfully arranging succulents on every available surface. It looks good. I think my new ‘If Life Gives You Lemons, Add Gin’ print adds a certain je ne sais quoi. The place smells great too. I panic-bought two more reed diffusers and have a Yankee Candle in Home Sweet Home the size of a tractor tyre going in the bathroom.

  I’m about to stick my head into the freezer one last time, just to be sure, when there’s a sharp knock on the door. As I near it I can hear the faint sound of voices bickering on the other side.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get over this … this betrayal,’ Majella is hissing at Pablo when I open it.

  His eyes are screwed shut like a man in pain. ‘Mijo, mi amore, you know I would never plan it like this. Please forgive me. I beg you.’

  ‘Oh, what’s all this?’ I say, standing back as Majella storms in in a cloud of Alien. ‘A lover’s tiff?’

  ‘James,’ she says, nodding at him. Then she turns to me, tears in her eyes. ‘It’s the bloody stag, Aisling. You’ll never guess when it’s on.’

  ‘No idea,’ I say, pasting on a smile. ‘Welcome to our home. Drink?’

  ‘Bloody Valentine’s Day,’ Majella screeches, ignoring me, while Pablo buries his head in his hands and sinks to his knees. ‘I can’t believe my fiancé would do it to me. Who has their stag on Valentine’s Day?’

  ‘It is not my fault, mi amore! Javier and Miguel, they used the Google and found the best deal to come to Ballygobbard that they could. That is 14 February at the Mountrath.’

  I stifle a laugh. I know that deal – they run it every year. I hope Pablo’s brothers enjoy their complimentary bottle of fizz and rose petals on their double bed. It’s very romantic altogether.

  ‘Something from the bar cart, Majella?’ James says, trying to defuse the situation. ‘Do come in.’ Thank God Carol’s gone down to Ballymaloe for the night. It’s shaping up to be a noisy one if the first two guests are anything to go by.

  ‘I won’t go! I will take you to Ballygobbard’s finest restaurant,’ Pablo wails, and I assume he’s talking about BallyGoBrunch since the only other ‘restaurant’ is the Chinese takeaway. I’m flattered, to be honest. James looks a bit taken aback but I suppose he’s only used to Majella and Pablo’s public displays of affection, not their raging fights.

  There’s another knock on the door.

  ‘Can you keep it civil, lads?’ I say, making a beeline for it. ‘This is our housewarming, remember? Go look at the bar cart. It’s rose gold.’

  Sharon and Cyclops are the next to arrive, clutching bottles of champagne.

  ‘The place looks stunning, hun,’ Sharon says, pressing a bottle at me and handing me a bag from Avoca. Swish! ‘Ooh, is that a bar cart?’

  ‘It is,’ I say, delighted. I should have known Sharon would cop it immediately. She’s very up on her interiors and is no stranger to a decorative houseplant herself, real or otherwise.

  ‘That smell is unreal,’ Cyclops says, patting me on the shoulder.

  ‘Just a few candles,’ I say with a smile. ‘Go get yourself a Tia Maria, Cy. Plenty of milk in the fridge.’

  ‘Sound, Ais.’

  The next twenty minutes are basically a blur of me opening the door, firing coats at James to throw onto the bed and showing people to the bar cart.

  ‘You and James are such a fab couple,’ Dee Ruane says when I join some of the girls in the kitchen. ‘I told Titch about the yoghurts. He said James is putting them all to shame. Good, I said. It might make you pull your socks up. Sumira Singh shouldn’t be the only woman in the village getting help with her shopping.’

  ‘Ah, stop,’ I reply, folding my arms and leaning back against the counter, all the ‘relaxes’ from earlier forgotten. ‘He has his faults.’

  ‘Like what?’ Sharon goes.

  ‘He has no idea how to load the dishwasher. I always have to redo it. He puts building-site muck all over the apartment.’

  ‘Pfft,’ Denise goes. ‘Liam doesn’t even know where the dishwasher is. Fair dues, Ais. He’s some catch.’

  ‘And he has bad taste in films.’

  ‘Don’t they all,’ Dee says, rolling her eyes. ‘I’ll never understand Titch’s loyalty to Jason Statham.’

  ‘How are you and Cyclops getting on above the salon, Sharon?’ Denise asks. ‘I heard he got a bit of slagging at training for the back wax.’

  ‘We’re in a bit of a bubble,’ she says with a smile. ‘It’s been lovely, hun.’

  ‘I remember those days,’ Denise chimes in. ‘I put on nearly a stone after the wedding. All we did was sit on the couch and order food from the Chinese. I couldn’t even fit into my O’Neills until I started doing Zumba with Mags.’

  ‘God, I’m right there with you,’ I say, pinging the waistband of my holdy-in knickers, which is just below my bra. I swear I see Sharon rolling her eyes.

  ‘You have the place very cosy. You know we still have two free Thursdays this summer?’ Lisa Gleeson, who’s here because she’s Maeve’s first cousin, is waggling her eyebrows at me. I know what she’s getting at, but it would kill me to get married on a weekday. Especially with her doing the organising – who knows what I’d get. And anyway, marriage is the last thing on my mind. Living together is all the rage now. Look at Sadhbh and Don.

  ‘Maybe you should try to get Emilia Coburn,’ laughs Maeve. ‘She could have a BGB wedding instead of swanning off to France.’

  I almost drop my glass at the sound of her name and pray to God nobody noticed, but nobody seems to. Sharon is staring at the floor and I wonder what’s annoyed her. She was in great form when she arrived.

  ‘I was half-thinking of tweeting her from the Ard Rí account,’ Lisa goes, oblivious to my panic. ‘What do you think, girls? I know she has two million followers but, I mean, it would make sense for them to do it here since her granny was from Knock.’

  ‘Ballygobbard!’ Dee and Maeve roar together.

  ‘Right, whatever,’ Lisa says while I sweat quietly and rearrange the apples in the fruit bowl, praying they change the subject.

  ‘Skippy Brennan thinks they’re actually doing it in Canada, since that’s where they’re filming the new James Bond,’ Maeve says. ‘According to him they’ve got some fancy wedding planner. She did Kim and Kanye’s.’

  Well, I know for certain that’s not right. I googled Mandy and there was no mention of Kim and Kanye.

  ‘She’s the best in the business, apparently,’ Dee says, nodding. ‘Charges something like 100K a go.’

  ‘Is that what I could be earning if I went independent?’ Lisa asks, her eyes widening. I can almost see the dollar signs. Well, euro signs. ‘Because I was thinking I could promote myself to “wedding consultant” if I went out on my own.’

  ‘What exactly would you be doing?’ Maeve asks, looking sceptical.

  ‘Giving expert advice and that,’ Lisa says with a wave of her hand. ‘You know there
are men who go to weddings just to drink the free booze and score vulnerable women? It’s actually shocking. Wedding crashers. I could tell brides and grooms how to spot them.’

  ‘I can count on one hand the number of weddings I’ve gone to with a free bar,’ Sharon finally speaks up. ‘I don’t think wedding crashers are a big problem, hun.’

  ‘Do you miss home at all, Ais?’ Sharon asks. I think about it for a second while watching James talking to Cyclops, Titch and Pablo across the room.

  ‘Not really. I still see Mammy nearly every day. And Paul is there now in the evenings to keep her company, which is keeping my guilt at bay.’

  ‘How is he doing, Ais? I heard he’s not great. He’s in Maguire’s a lot at the bar on his own,’ Maeve says.

  That’s news to me. I must take him out for a drink one of these weeks and check up on him. ‘He’ll be grand, I’m sure. Mammy is looking after him.’

  ‘Hey, not a bad turn out,’ James whispers in my ear later when I’m queuing outside the bathroom and praying to God forty spare toilet rolls was enough.

  ‘People are so good,’ I say, smiling up at him. ‘We got six more Ellen DeGeneres mugs!’

  ‘Lads, I’m sorry to interrupt.’ It’s Majella not looking sorry at all. ‘But Pablo is up the walls about this bloody stag.’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll be able to change the date at this stage,’ I say. ‘It’s only three weeks away. These things don’t organise themselves, you know.’

  ‘Ah, I’m over that. In fact, he was delighted when I lost the rag. He actually wants to get out of it.’

  ‘Why?’ James asks.

  ‘He’s scared shitless, James,’ Majella says flatly. ‘And I’m starting to get a bit worried myself, if I’m being honest. Remember when Con Rice broke both his elbows paintballing? They had to get a new suit jacket specially made for him. I don’t want Pab coming back to me with no eyebrows or only one testicle. We’re planning on having kids, you know.’

  ‘He’ll be grand, Majella. Sure isn’t John organising it? He won’t let it get out of hand.’

  I steal a glance at James to see if there’s any reaction to me mentioning John. But nothing. He’s as cool as a cucumber that lad.

  ‘I know what the Rangers lads are like when they get together, Ais. And you do too. It’s like a pack mentality – they lead each other astray. I need someone to go and keep an eye on things. Someone … impartial.’ I follow Majella’s gaze – she’s looking pointedly at James. And then the penny drops.

  ‘But James isn’t going on the stag,’ I say.

  ‘He isn’t yet.’

  ‘What do you mean … yet?’ James asks hesitantly. ‘I was planning to make Aisling a special dinner. And that spotted dick I loved at school. It’ll be our first Valentine’s Day. I wanted it to be special.’

  ‘Actually, maybe you have a point, Maj,’ I say quickly. ‘Someone should be there to mind Pablo. We don’t want a repeat of what happened to Tiny Hands Turlough in Prague.’

  Majella visibly pales. ‘Oh, shit. I’d forgotten about that.’

  ‘Would you do it?’ I say, batting my Colette Green eyelashes at him. ‘For me?’

  James smiles sweetly. ‘I would, but unfortunately I’m not invited.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Majella says, draining her G&T. ‘Aisling can ask John to sort that out. He won’t say no to her.’

  I glare at Majella. What a thing to say in front of James. It’s not like I have John wrapped around my finger.

  ‘Go on, Ais, ring him. Please?’

  ‘Ah, you’re not serious, Aisling?’ John says when I ring him from the bedroom five minutes later. Majella wasn’t going to stop hassling me until I did, and it would be nice for James to be included. I think because Pablo works for him and he’s kind of a big man around town, he’s a bit isolated.

  ‘Ah, go on, you’ll barely notice him. He’s very polite. Please?’ I’m buoyed by the booze and feeling tenacious.

  ‘Who is it?’ I hear Megan go in the background. It sounds like they’re in the pub. Although it must be fairly empty since everyone who’s anyone in BGB is here. I probably should have invited them.

  ‘It took me weeks to get all the money off people. I finally got everything sorted yesterday, and then Paul changed his mind and said he wasn’t coming so my numbers are off.’

  ‘Our Paul?’

  ‘Yeah. He said he’s just not up to it.’

  Between this and going on his own to Maguire’s, it all sounds a bit worrying. I was hoping the stag might be something for him to look forward to. But I seize on this piece of information. ‘That means you have an extra spot, right? James can take Paul’s place? Majella just really wants him there to look after Pablo.’

  ‘Do you really think we’re that irresponsible? That we need James to mind us?’

  I can already feel this backfiring but it’s too late now. ‘I don’t know, maybe you should ask Turlough?’

  There’s silence on the other end.

  ‘Please, John,’ I urge. ‘I really need a dig out here. Please.’

  ‘Oh, alright then,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Send me his number and I’ll add him to the WhatsApp group.’

  ‘Who is it, John?’ I hear her go again.

  ‘You’re a lifesaver!’

  ‘Ais, before you go, do you know his blood type?’

  30

  ‘I knew this stag, it would get out of the hand. I have seen enough Ibiza Unconscious to know this.’

  ‘Uncovered,’ I mutter, without thinking, but Majella silences me with a touch on my arm.

  ‘Shhh, Ais, he’s very shook. They gave him seventeen Jägerbombs.’

  I’ve seen Pablo standing on a table singing ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ after two pints so this is truly alarming. John and James were supposed to look after him. I’ll kill them.

  We’re sitting on the couch in the Morans’ apartment, which is mercifully otherwise empty. James fell in at 3 a.m., went straight to sleep and left first thing this morning with barely a word. I texted Majella to see how Pablo got on and she summoned me in, where I found him with his head in her lap, clutching a tea-towel and a banana.

  ‘Why did you drink so much, Pablo?’ I’ve read two Stellar articles now about victim blaming so I don’t want to be pointing the finger, but surely he could have just said no. I bet Titch was the ringleader. He’s a danger to everyone when it comes to shots.

  ‘It wasn’t the lads,’ Majella says quietly. ‘There was a hen in the Vortex. Down from Dublin. They attacked Pablo with feather boas.’

  As if on cue, a solitary pink feather dislodges from Pablo’s hair and sinks to the floor.

  ‘That must be the gang Mammy had in the yurts! They’re supposed to stay again tonight but she found an alpaca wearing a negligee this morning and asked them to leave. There was a goat in one of the beds too. Mammy said he had the good grace to look ashamed.’

  ‘Sounds about right.’ Majella purses her lips. ‘They fed Pablo full of drink. He says he was powerless to resist.’

  ‘They were so many,’ Pablo keens. ‘They say, “You’re our Valentine, Pablo. Don’t let us down, Pablo. You make the bride cry, Pablo.” I don’t want to make the bride cry.’

  ‘Oh, you’re such a dote. A soft, foolish, dote.’ Majella kisses his forehead and he grips his tea-towel and his banana even tighter.

  ‘My brothers, my Javier, my Miguel, they were laughing. They laugh and they laugh.’

  The absolute lousers.

  ‘But where were the lads? Why didn’t they save you?’ I don’t know why they would let this happen. John knows how impressionable Pablo is, and James was sent explicitly to look after him.

  Pablo looks from me to Majella and then back to me again, his large brown eyes full of uncertainty and red with the hangover.

  ‘Go on,’ Majella encourages. ‘Tell her.’

  ‘They were smashing up the fight.’

  ‘Breaking up,’ I say reflexively. ‘What fight?’

&n
bsp; ‘John and James.’

  ‘What?’ A sick feeling hits my stomach. ‘What were they fighting about? They weren’t hitting each other, were they?’

  Pablo looks as panicked as I feel. ‘I do not know. They had the words and Cyclops and Baby Chief Gittons they took them outside and I think that one pushed the other one. And The Truck said after that maybe one caught a fist.’

  ‘Who … caught the fist, Pablo?’ Whichever one of them was hit or did the hitting, I feel sick.

  ‘I do not know, Aisling. I like John. I like James. I do not want my friends to fight. A misunderstandment, I think.’

  I catch Majella’s eye and give her the ‘what’s going on?’ eyebrows but she just shrugs. ‘You’ll have to ask James.’

  ‘I know as little as you, Ais,’ Sharon shouts over the roar of the hairdryer. ‘But we can ask him as soon as he comes down.’

  I was going to skip my blow-dry appointment, I feel so sick over what Pablo’s told me, but I reckoned that Sharon might be able to shed some light on the situation, via Cyclops. I sent James a text the second I left Majella and Pablo’s but there’s been no reply. I can’t face ringing him just yet. I was so distracted that I let Cliodhna Ó Súilleabháin put a treatment in my hair even though I only got one last week. They’re only a racket but I have more important things to worry about.

  The salon is mercifully quiet for a Saturday morning so I can roar back at Sharon to my heart’s content. ‘Did he say anything at all about it?’

  ‘Just that it was eventful. But, sure, I thought he meant Pablo got a lap dance or something.’ Jesus, Pablo would expire. ‘He didn’t mention anything about a fight.’

  Just then the beaded curtain behind the counter parts and Cyclops slopes out, bleary eyed and fresh from the shower. Sharon beckons him over and he nods when he sees me, resignation on his face.