‘Ais, I can’t,’ she stammers. ‘It’s too much. We were going to just have a few drinks in the back of Maguire’s …’
‘Majella! What way is that to celebrate the best day of your life?! You could have a drink in Maguire’s any night of the week. I know you’ve always wanted an Ard Rí wedding, and an Ard Rí wedding is what you’re having.’
‘It’s too much!’
‘Not at all,’ I say firmly. ‘It’ll take some of the pressure off you, anyway. Now, can you both feck off so I can finish what I’m doing here and start getting ready for tonight?’
****
‘Aisling, you look gorgeous! Your hair!’ Sadhbh and Don – who are the best-looking baldy couple I’ve ever seen – are among the first to arrive. She’s drawn little dots in the corners of her eyes, and instead of looking like a madwoman she looks stunning, and her three-quarter-length purple culottes don’t look a bit confirmationy, despite how they sounded when she described them on the phone.
‘Hiya, Sadhbhy, hiya, Don.’ It still makes me shy to be in Don Shields’s presence, although at this very moment my most pressing concern is my own hair – the sheer amount of it. Now, I love a good curly blow-dry as much as the next girl, but I really think Sharon took liberties.
‘The curls will drop,’ she reassured me as she gently pushed me out of the salon. ‘Go on, I’ll see you later.’
I caught sight of Marty Boland behind the butcher’s counter as I headed to the car and felt a twinge of pity for him. It soon passed, though. Carol is doing so much better, no thanks to that oaf.
Sadhbh touches my hair softly. ‘It’s fabulous, Aisling, so much volume. You look so sultry.’ Sharon had drawn around my eyes in black eyeliner and did some flicks. I wouldn’t be out of place in the Presentation’s transition year production of Grease, but Sadhbh seems very taken with it. Even Don is nodding approvingly.
Mammy, Majella, Pablo and Carol are over by the buffet, Carol casting a critical eye over everything. There’s a minibus due shortly with all the girls on it: Deirdre Ruane, Maeve Hennessey, the whole gang. The Tidy Towns committee are en route too, and Father Fenlon said he’ll pop in and bless the place. It can’t hurt, I suppose. After everything that’s happened. Even John and Megan are here with some of the Rangers crew and when I see them together I feel … grand. Genuinely grand. Happy for them, even. I’m watching the door like a hawk. My nerves are at me and I’m as close to a dose of the skitters as I’ve ever been.
‘Nervous about the special guest?’ Sadhbh, Don and Elaine sidle up beside me as I chew on a Carol Boland Cocktail Sausage and hover.
‘What? Oh, he probably won’t even come.’
‘You mean she?’ Sadhbh looks amused. ‘And she’s definitely coming. Just a few minutes away.’
What is she on about? Ruby interrupts us. She’s marvelling at my lampshades and taking about a million photos. ‘These are going straight on the ’Gram.’
‘Don’t forget to plug your phone in!’ I’ll have everyone’s phones charged to 100 per cent if it kills me.
Sharon arrives in a flurry of glamour and sequins and is over to Don like a hot snot, twisting him into all sorts of selfies. The BGB girls and the Tidy Towns crowd arrive all at once, and soon they’re all crowding around Don too, and Sadhbh looks on and laughs. I’m in the process of trying to extricate Martina Cloghessy from lying on the floor between his legs when there’s a tap on my shoulder.
‘Aisling.’ That voice. That buttery voice.
I swing around and it’s James Matthews, his face almost obscured by a huge bunch of roses. ‘You look lovely. These are for you.’ He looks unusually shy. His pale-blue shirt and navy jacket make him the most dressed up I’ve ever seen him. He looks like he was born to wear it.
‘Eh – ah. Hiya, James. The sausages are over there.’ It’s all a bit too much for me all of a sudden. I scuttle away, spotted by Majella, who frees herself from Pablo and clip-clops after me into the kitchen, where the caterers are working away.
‘What are you at? You’ve been waiting for him all evening, and now here he is.’
‘I know. I just – I fancy him too much, Majella. I can’t cope.’
‘He fancies you too! Any dope can see that.’
‘He does not. I’m not … I’m grand. I’m an independent woman. Throw your hands up at me.’
‘You can be an independent woman and still fancy the arse off him. I fancy him!’ She quickly follows it up with, ‘Don’t tell Pablo.’
‘I suppose–’
We’re interrupted by Sadhbh, poking her head into the kitchen. ‘Guest of honour is here, Aisling.’
‘Who’s this now?’ Majella is all ears. ‘Guest of honour? This is news to me.’ And me too. What is Sadhbh up to? Maj heads out of the kitchen first and nearly skids on an errant sausage at the sight before her.
It’s Colette Green – and her glamorous entourage! Ireland’s premier fashion and beauty blogger. Colette is kissing Elaine warmly on the cheek and greeting Sadhbh and Don with delight, saying she didn’t know shaving your head was all the rage. Don and Colette go way back, it turns out, and with both Elaine and Don harping on about this great new café, she couldn’t turn down the offer of an invite. Colette is wearing her own jeans, of course, with the elaborate C embroidered into the pocket. So elegant, and even though paying €110 for a pair of jeans would nearly choke me, you have to admit she looks very swish. Majella has two pairs. I’d say she’s raging she’s not wearing them tonight.
Sharon pushes through the throng and places a bottle in my hands. I notice Cyclops is never more than a foot from her, and she finally looks relaxed about it. ‘Time for a toast, I think.’ It’s the fancy Champagne, the bottle James gave me all those months ago – I still have the bag. I look up and catch his eye and lift the Champagne in a nod of thanks. He gives me a ‘don’t mention it’ smile. After a bit of cajoling of the cork and a sizeable amount of conflicting advice from the crowd: ‘Squeeze it out, Ais,’ ‘Turn the bottle clockwise,’ ‘Put your back into it, girl,’ we have a pop and a cheer. I turn down the calls for a speech, and they make do with three cheers and a round of ‘For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow’.
The Champagne is the catalyst for the wine to really start flowing, and soon Majella’s iPhone is connected to a speaker and multiple shapes are being thrown to Take That’s greatest hits, with a few The Peigs classics for good measure, much to Don’s embarrassment.
Colette is Snapchatting and Instagramming up a storm and has said she’ll get BallyGoBrunch trending if it kills her. She’s been raving about Carol’s sausages too, although she’s such a rake I don’t know how she eats anything more than leaves. A few more sausages would do her no harm. I’m flat out getting in the caterers’ way, refilling glasses, chatting to people and generally avoiding James. Like I told Majella, I fancy him too much. I’m not able.
As the night draws in and the glass windows of BallyGoBrunch are nearly shaking with the dancing and good cheer, I slip off to the office for a few minutes’ peace. Mammy and Constance have just headed home, squiffy on white wine and locking Colette Green in for a visit to the yurts. I’ve just slipped off my court shoes when there’s a teeny knock on the door behind me.
‘Hello.’ Oh, Christ. The door is ajar and he pushes it open.
‘Hiya,’ is all I can manage, my cheeks like two big tomatoes. I rest my arse on the desk in an attempt to stop my shaking legs.
‘I was thinking of heading …’ James trails off, looking at me for encouragement.
‘Oh, you don’t have to,’ I stammer. I can simultaneously imagine nothing worse and nothing better.
‘Okay. Then I’ll stay.’ He stands where he is and surveys me for a moment, before taking a deep breath. ‘And I’ll do this.’
He closes the space between us in one stride, landing his lips on mine and just going for it. Hands in my mad hair, pressing me against the desk, pressing himself into me. It goes on for minutes, soundtracked by the caterers clattering
and the mass singsong out on the floor.
‘Yeah, you and me, we can ride on a star,
If you stay with me, girl,
We can rule the world.’
‘AAAisssling,’ Majella calls loudly and deliberately as she approaches, and we break apart and turn to face the door like bold children.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she says, smirking, ‘but Colette and the girls are heading off.’
‘Oh right, eh, I’ll be right out.’
‘Give your face a wipe,’ she says conspiratorially as she turns to leave. ‘You too.’ She winks at James. We look at each other and burst out laughing. My lipstick is smeared across both of our faces.
Two minutes of scrubbing and giggling later and we’re out, sheepishly waving Colette’s gang off and thanking Don, who’s giving them a lift back up to Dublin. ‘You’re staying, though, Sadhbhy?’ I check. ‘Of course I am! I wouldn’t miss Marian’s spare-room cushions for anything.’ Mammy is fond of a decorative cushion, I’ll give her that.
As Don and the girls fall out the door, they’re passed by Shem Moran, who’s holding something in his hands – or trying to. Whatever it is, it’s wiggling and writhing like a mad yoke.
‘What have you got there, Shem?’ I call, peering out into the dark. I’m hoping he’s not going to try and sell me a live animal. I think we’ve cut our ties with a certain butcher, and I’m not about to slaughter a lamb or pluck a turkey myself.
‘Lads, you’ll never believe it.’ He’s absolutely creasing himself laughing.
Between the Champagne and the wine and the pitch dark, I really haven’t a notion what’s going on. Then there’s an unmistakable howl and the penny drops. I know exactly what it is. Or who it is.
‘Willy!’ Majella shrieks. ‘Daddy, where did you find him?’
‘Billy Foran rang me this evening to say he caught him in the feed shed,’ Shem bellows. ‘His own Lassie was in heat and they had every hound in the county sniffing after her.’
It’s a miracle. A modern-day miracle.
‘He’s looking a bit skinny, and the hair on his tail is singed off, but apart from that he’s perfect – aren’t ya, fella?’ Shem continues, rubbing Willy’s belly. The dog is loving the attention, it has to be said.
There’s another shriek. Pablo, feeling a little worse for wear and half-collapsed in a chair, has spotted Willy out the window.
‘Dios mío! My little friend. My tiny humping man. You come back to me!’ I think he’s in tears.
‘Daddy, will you take Pablo upstairs? I think he’s had enough.’ Majella helps Pablo to the door and he disappears with Shem, crying Willy’s name over and over again.
Beside me, James clears his throat. ‘I, eh, might head on too,’ he says into my ear. ‘Leave you girls to it.’ He surveys the remaining crowd. Sinéad, Deirdre and Maeve. Sharon and Carol. Sadhbh and Elaine. And Ruby the techno fan screaming at Majella to ‘Keep it post-Robbie.’
He sees my crestfallen look and whispers in my ear. ‘Room forty-three at the Mountrath. I’ll see you later.’ He kisses my cheek and he’s gone. My God. And me bald as a coot.
I look around at the eclectic bunch of women in my café, roaring along with the music, fists of pure emotion rising and falling. It doesn’t seem too long ago that I was worried about living in Ballygobbard full-time and panicking about missing my swanky Dublin life. But if the last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that location doesn’t matter – home is what you make of it. It’s the people you surround yourself with. Pablo is living proof of that. Then Sharon grabs me in a headlock and pulls me into the centre of the group and we all sway to the music, our arms linked together, the bright lights of BallyGoBrunch shining out into the darkness.
‘Yeah, you and me, we can ride on a star,
If you stay with me, girl,
We can rule the world.’
Acknowledgements
Thank you to everyone who bought Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling, who talked about it, posted about it on Facebook, recommended it to a friend. We continue to be overwhelmed by the love.
Thank you to our families and friends for the unwavering support and for not asking too many questions when it was clear we didn’t have the answers.
Special thanks to Conor Nagle for persuading us to put Aisling’s story on paper, and to the whole team at Gill Books, especially Catherine Gough, Teresa Daly, Ellen Monnelly, Avril Cannon, Paul Neilan and Nicki Howard, who have worked tirelessly to make Aisling a household name. Thanks, too, to Maxine Hitchcock and Clare Bowran at Michael Joseph for their invaluable input.
To our agents Sheila Crowley and Abbie Grieves at Curtis Brown, you are the best Bad Cops in the business.
Thanks to our longtime hero Marian Keyes, who will probably never know the immense thrill we feel every single time we talk about how she’s helped and encouraged us.
Much love to Gavan and Ciara Reilly, experts in all things GAA, ICA and everything in between.
To our early readers: John Boyne, Louise McSharry, Fiona Hyde, Eoin Matthews, Áine Bambrick, Breda Gittons, Deirdre Ball, Sarah Kisch, Richard Toner. Your enthusiasm and encouragement have been extremely comforting. Thanks also to Marianne Gunn O’Connor, Donal Ryan, Louise O’Neill and Paul Howard for the words of wisdom.
And, finally, to Louise Keegan, who’s only a tiny bit of an Aisling after all.
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin …
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinUKbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
MICHAEL JOSEPH
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Ireland by Gill Books, 2018
Published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph, 2018
Copyright © Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen, 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
ISBN: 978-1-405-93823-5
The Importance of Being Aisling Page 32
