If This is Paradise, I Want My Money Back

by Claudia Carroll

  Anyway, time to talk about Kate, not me. The journey to Galway takes just over three and a half hours, and it’s all very Thelma and Louise, minus any kind of conversation or interaction with each other, or the cops chasing us. Oh, or the sexy hitchhiker they pick up in the back, who wouldn’t have lasted a wet day with Kate, anyhow; she has a thing about gum chewers. I spend most of the journey willing her to turn on Love FM, a local station that plays romantic smoochy songs back-to-back, anything to get her into the mood. At one point, about an hour into the journey, she does click on to it, and I think Hallelujah, God be praised, but they’re playing the Carpenters’ ‘Goodbye to Love’, which she immediately snaps off. We do the rest of the journey in silence.

  When we do eventually arrive, mid-afternoon, Kate heads straight for her brother-in-law Robbie’s big, sprawling neo-Georgian house in Salthill, on the outskirts of the city, where Perfect Paul always stays whenever he’s in town. I should fill you in a bit. Of all the brothers, Robbie is the one closest to Paul, in age as well as everything else. There’s only a year between them, and they even look alike, right down to the chunky neck and big, beefy, man-size presence, which Mum always says reminds her a bit of Desperate Dan in the comics she used to read as a kid. I’m not messing, they’re the type of fellas that you almost expect to walk into a restaurant and order a large helping of cow pie. In fact Mum and I often joke that Paul’s breakfast consists of a full packet of cornflakes, a pound of sugar and a pint of milk, all served up in a giant salad bowl. Which, when you consider that Kate’s the type to pick at a bag of lettuce from Marks & Spencer, then make jokes about how her target weight is two pounds above kidney failure, you’re left shaking your head in wonderment at just how opposites can attract.

  Anyway, Robbie is pretty much Paul’s number two, his consigliere; if this was The Godfather, then Robbie would play Tom Hagen to Paul’s Vito Corleone. He’s married to Rose, who Kate refers to behind her back as Briar Rose on account of how prickly she is. More anon.

  So anyway, one deep, nerve-calming gulp of air later, Kate scrunches her car through the gates and on to the gravelled driveway, then whips out her mobile and calls Paul. It goes straight through to his voicemail, though, so she leaves a short message telling him that surprise, surprise, she’s here, and can he please ring her as soon as he picks up the message? My heart goes out to her as I see her drumming her fingers nervously off the steering wheel. Knowing that, now Paul’s not around, she’ll have to face into meeting Briar Rose and her brood all on her own. Next thing, before she’s even had a chance to get psyched up, she’s spotted by one of the nephews, a kid of about six or seven. (Don’t ask me which one, there’s so many of them at family gatherings you’d almost wish they all wore individual sticky name-tags.) Anyway, said kid comes running round to the car door, thumps on it and demands to know if she brought him any sweets.

  ‘Oh, hi there!’ says Kate a bit over-brightly, rolling down the car window. ‘Eh, sorry, but I’m afraid I didn’t stop off to buy anything . . . emmm . . . Sean . . .’

  ‘I’m not Sean, I’m Jack,’ says the kid, looking at her disgustedly. Next thing, Briar Rose herself appears at the front door, tea towel in hand, to see for herself who the flashy Dublin reg car in her driveway belongs to.

  ‘It’s Auntie Kate come from Dublin,’ Jack shouts back to her. ‘And she didn’t bring anything, either. Not even crisps.’

  Jaysus, poor Kate. Five minutes later she’s in the kitchen, surrounded by about eight of the nieces and nephews, plus all three sisters-in-law, one of whom is breastfeeding, while another one, who’s about eight months pregnant, keeps screeching out the window at some kid called Tommy to stop tormenting his twin brother with the water hose. Kate looks totally out of her depth, and although I can tell by her that she’s doing her best to fit in and be a good sport, the sisters-in-law are having none of it. As if they’ve long ago made up their minds that Kate is some snooty, superior cow from Dublin who occasionally graces them with her presence purely to lord it over them all. That’s the label they’ve chosen for her, and she’s stuck with it. Whether she likes it or not.

  Which is just so unfair it’s starting to make my blood boil.

  OK. Here’s how the conversation should have gone.

  Kate: ‘Hi, Rose, great to see you, you’re looking well. Hi, Melissa, hi, Sue, my how your kids have all grown since I last saw them!’

  Rose: ‘Lovely to see you too, Kate, and thanks so much for popping in. How well you look, is that a new coat?’

  Kate: ‘Oh, this old thing? M & S, cheap as chips, just threw it on . . . etc., etc. . . .’

  Rose: ‘We’re just having a little snack, the kids are starving after school, will you have tea and a ham sandwich?’

  Kate: ‘Lovely, you’re very kind. Please allow me to help you. Also, can I assist with removing the mashed-in banana from that child’s hair?’

  Rose: ‘Wonderful. If you could also unhook the satellite dish so as to finish the row that’s currently blazing in the TV room, I would be most grateful, ha ha ha.’

  Kate: ‘Ha, ha ha. Don’t suppose there’s any sign of my husband, by any chance?’

  Rose: ‘Out touting for work with my husband, and generally slaving away to keep we ladies in the manner to which we are accustomed, hee hee.’

  Kate: ‘Yes, proper order, hee hee. Isn’t it terrific that we can sit cosily around the kitchen table, just a gang of sisters-in-law, and all get along so famously?’

  Rose: ‘Too bloody true. I’m sure I speak on behalf of all the family when I say what a delight it is to see you, Kate, and how much we all wish you lived here permanently. My, the sisterly fun we would all have . . . etc., etc. . . .’

  But, sadly, this is how the conversation actually goes.

  Kate (Nervously.): ‘Emm . . . hi, everyone!’

  Rose, Melissa and Sue (Barely looking up from their screeching brood.): ‘Howaya?’

  Rose (Eyeing her up and down.): ‘That a new coat?’

  Kate (Embarrassed.): ‘Oh, this? Eh, yeah, I got it at a designer discount warehouse sale . . .’

  The breastfeeding sister-in-law (Insincerely.): ‘Very swish.’

  Kate (Overeager.): ‘Oh, do you like it? Because if you do, I could easily get you one in your . . . emm . . . size.’

  (Cue a disgusted look from the breastfeeding sister-in-law, who is, shall we say, still battling with her baby weight.)

  Rose (Yelling out the window at some unfortunate child.): ‘Rory! You do NOT charge your cousins admission into that tree house. You know right well it’s for you all to share. Now hand back that two euro! (Then back to Kate.) Do you want tea and a sandwich?’

  Kate (Who is coeliac.): ‘Emm . . . would it be OK if I just had tea?’

  The pregnant sister-in-law (Deeply suspicious.): ‘Are you not hungry after the drive? God, I’d be starving after nearly four hours in the car.’

  Kate: ‘No, I just can’t eat bread, that’s all.’

  (Cue much hilarity around the table, with Kate getting more and more mortified by the second.)

  The sister-in-law who’s breastfeeding (Gleeful.): ‘Sure that’s the most mental thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life. If one of my kids said that to me, I’d clatter them. Not eat bread? Sure what are you supposed to live off? Thin air?’

  Kate (In a brave attempt to get off the subject.): ‘Don’t suppose anyone knows where Paul is, by any chance?’

  Rose: ‘He left here with Robbie early. Gone looking at a site above in Gort. Poor man was still knackered this morning, after doing that awful drive down here yesterday.’

  Heavily pregnant sister-in-law: ‘At least if he was based here in Galway, he wouldn’t have to sit in a car for three and a half hours every time there’s a bit of cheap land for sale. Ridiculous carry-on, if you ask me.’

  Rose (Hammering the point home.): ‘But sure, I suppose when you’ve no kids, it doesn’t really matter so much. Take it from me, though, Kate, the pair of you won’t be abl
e to flit around the country so much when you have a baby. Not a chance in hell. Poor aul Paul, every time I see him kicking a football around the back with one of mine, my heart goes out to him. I’d say he’s only dying to become a father. Sure he’s a born dad, so he is. And he was starving when he got here, too. Ate a massive dinner yesterday, then he had a full fry-up for breakfast this morning, and was still looking for second helpings. I don’t know, Kate, do you feed the man at all?’

  OK, I can’t stay silent any longer. And it’s not like anyone can hear me, either, so I can say what I like.

  ‘Hmmm, let me see now,’ I say, as I plonk down at the kitchen table, wedged right in between Rose and Kate. ‘It can’t be National Bitch Day, because all the banks are still open . . . so you’re clearly only needling Kate like this because, let me think now . . . oh yeah, because you’re an unutterable bloody cow, that’s why. Tell me this, Rose, was your mother by any chance a jackal?’

  Wasting my fragrant sweetness on the desert air, as usual, but it sure as hell makes me feel better. Just then, the door opens, and in bursts Robbie with Connor, the youngest brother, and they, at least, are both marginally politer to Kate than the wives all were. Robbie even asks after Mum and sympathizes with Kate about me, which is far more than any of the others did. There’s chaos and mayhem and kids running around screaming, demanding to be taken either to the movies or else McDonald’s, or basically anything other than knuckle down to doing actual homework.

  ‘Eh, don’t suppose you know where Paul got to?’ Kate has to shout, to make herself heard over the racket.

  ‘Ehh . . . band practice,’ says Robbie, shoving a ham sanger into his gob. ‘Down in Sheehan’s pub. Julie and the others wanted to try out a few new numbers before the fortieth-birthday party tonight.’

  Even the mention of Julie’s name brightens the collective mood of the sisters-in-law, all of whom, it seems, know Julie from schooldays, are best buddies with her, and think she’s well on her way to being the next Christina Aguilera. Only playing pub gigs in Galway temporarily until she gets her big break, either from going on X Factor, or from Louis Walsh discovering her, or from suddenly becoming a huge overnight YouTube sensation.

  The way you do.

  ‘I must get her to sing “Beautiful” for me tonight,’ says Rose fondly. ‘Because that’s my song, isn’t it, girlies?’

  Kate eventually says fine, that she’ll go down to Sheehan’s to find her husband, but no one either hears or answers her. In all the commotion, she slips out, and I don’t think any of them even bother to say goodbye. Then, I don’t know why, but some latent sixth sense makes me stay on after she’s left. The minute she’s left the room, they all start talking about her. All of them.

  ‘Always a joy!’ Rose says sarcastically to the closed kitchen door. ‘Seeing you leave, that is.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t eat wheat,’ the breastfeeding sister-in-law says, doing a lousy impression of Kate’s clipped tones.

  ‘I got my coat at a designer sale,’ chimes in the pregnant one.

  ‘And did you hear her telling me she’d try to get me the same coat . . . in my size. Cheek of her. I’ve lost three full pounds since I had the baby, you know.’

  ‘Oh, and you can totally tell!’ the other two chime obediently.

  ‘And did you see the way she was looking me up and down, like I’m some kind of beached whale that wouldn’t fit into one of her bloody designer coats? God, I hate the superior way skinny women go on sometimes. Would you say she even feeds Paul? With her, “Oh, I don’t eat bread.”’

  ‘Oh, look at me, afraid to put too much dip on a cracker just in case I might sprain my wrist,’ says Rose, doing by far the worst impression of the lot of them.

  ‘Definitely not,’ says the pregnant one. ‘At least not judging by the huge clatter of sausages and mash he ate the minute he got down here.’

  ‘How do you think I feel, girls?’ says Rose. ‘She’ll expect to stay the night here with Paul this evening and wait till you see: nothing will be good enough for her. Well, if madam thinks she’s getting the red-carpet treatment in this house, she’s another think coming.’

  Much clicking of tongues and umming and dark nodding of heads at this. Particularly unfair, as I happen to know that Kate is a really good house guest. I mean, OK, she may be a little high-maintenance, but her heart’s in the right place. In fact, I remember one famous occasion when she and Paul were staying with Mum while the builders were in their house, and Kate donned a pair of Marigolds and started scrubbing down the bathtub, much to Mum’s disgust. (‘Where does she think she is, anyway, the house that hygiene forgot?’ I remember Mum snarling at me, like I’d anything to do with it.) Anyway, the point is that Kate means well, but try telling that to this shower.

  ‘Wouldn’t even sit for more than five minutes with us, the uppity aul cow,’ Rose goes on, shaking her head sadly. ‘Poor aul Paul. You’d really have to feel sorry for him.’

  By the time I rejoin Kate, she’s back in the car, on her way to town, almost trembling at the coolness of her reception.

  ‘Bitches,’ I say to her, but of course, she just stares straight ahead. ‘That’s all they are, Kate, so there’s no point in letting them get to you. They’ve made up their mind that you’re an outsider, and that they’re not going to like you, and there’s no turning them. Best you can do is have as few dealings with them as possible. I mean, everyone has in-laws they don’t like, don’t they?’

  She tries calling Paul on the mobile again, but still no answer. So, a few minutes later, she pulls up into the car park of Sheehan’s pub, which isn’t too far from Rose’s house, and heads inside. Paul’s car is there, too, thank God. I follow her in, but it’s packed with a coach party on their way to see the Spanish Steps, and there’s no one serving behind the bar. Eventually, she stops a lounge girl laden down with a trayload of soup and sandwiches, with hair extensions so long they’re almost swishing into the consommé, and asks her if she knows where the band for tonight are practising.

  ‘Function room upstairs,’ says hair-extension girl, without even looking at her. So up the back stairs Kate goes, with me hot on her heels, dying to see the look on Paul’s face when he sees her. That she’s driven all this way just to be with him. That she’s here to make up for the humdinger of a row they had early yesterday morning. That she loves him and knows just how lucky she is to have such an ideal husband, to rob from Oscar Wilde. That it’s not his fault that his brothers all married such harridans: Kate and Paul have each other, and that’s all that matters.

  From down the corridor outside, you can hear a guitar playing ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles, and a deep, mezzo-soprano woman’s voice crooning along. The fabulous, about-to-be-discovered Julie, I assume, plus the rest of the band rehearsing for tonight.

  Kate bursts in, all smiles, with a big, ‘Hi, love, it’s me!’

  But it’s not the full band at all.

  Just Paul and Julie on their own.

  And they don’t even look all that pleased to see her.

  Later on that evening, I’m still with Kate as she wanders aimlessly around the Brown Thomas branch off Eglinton Square, having spent the last few hours guilt-buying gifts for all the horrors-in-law. She’s shaken, I know she is, and I just couldn’t bring myself to leave her. There you go, that’s just the kind of 24/7 angel I am. By now, she’s laden down with all kinds of presents: scented candles for the pregnant sister-in-law, perfume for the breastfeeding one and a huge chocolate cake for Rose. Not including the bags and bags of colouredy pick and mix stuff from the Sweet Factory for the kids, to make up for arriving empty-handed earlier.

  Paul was perfectly polite to her earlier, in Sheehan’s, but stood firm, telling her that he and Julie needed to rehearse before tonight, and that he’d see her back at the house for dinner later. Which left Kate with the choice of facing back into making small talk with his awful family till he arrived, or else skiving off for a few hours to fill the time with shopping. And r
eally, would you blame her?

  Come sixish though, and it’s not like she can absent herself for much longer without it seeming rude. And believe me, you wouldn’t want to give this shower any ammunition to use against you. She calls Paul, yet again gets his voicemail and tells him she’ll see him back at Rose’s house. My heart goes out to her as she faces back into the kitchen of horrors, where, apart from there being about a dozen or so kids sprawled out in front of the telly, no one seems to have budged all afternoon. But then, that’s just the way this family are, I have to remind myself; they just seem to really enjoy living in each other’s pockets all day long. I dunno, maybe because it’s all the easier to bitch about outsiders like Kate when they intrude on their poisonous little web of hating the entire world outside of their four walls.