21

You could water a desert with the condensation on the windows of Strong Stuff where Sharon is executing curly blow-dries like her life depends on it, heels and all. My head is over the basin and Majella’s decided that Christmas Eve is the day to get serious about Operation Wedding Hair and has a whole roll of tinfoil on her head. Fair play to Sharon, she didn’t blink an eye when Maj pointed to a picture of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in a magazine and said, ‘That please.’ Majella’s hair has been every colour under the sun, often at her own hand and often with disastrous consequences and more than one scarlet neck. So who knows, maybe Sharon will have her looking like Rosie come May.

‘When is Paul home?’ Maj roars at me across Cillian Ruane, who’s letting Caitriona loose on his eyebrows with the thread. He nearly loses one he gives such a lep with the fright. Cillian is definitely an early adopter among the BGB lads when it comes to eyebrows. He went to art school in Dublin and told Deirdre he’s pansexual so he’d be fairly on the ball. Dee told him not to tell their father, but Trevor Ruane spent a summer in San Francisco in the seventies and can’t be scandalised so it all went grand.

‘This afternoon,’ I roar back at her, as Cliodhna, the other Ó Súilleabháin twin, scalds my scalp with the water.

‘A bit of cold, Cliodhna, good girl,’ I encourage her through gritted teeth. Sharon says they’re great workers but lack an ounce of cop-on. A crisis was narrowly averted the other day when she intercepted Caitriona on her way to apply a peach rinse to Granny Daly’s tight white curls. Imagine the sight of her at mass.

‘I’d say your mother is delighted, is she?’ Maj roars again, just as Sharon turns off her hairdryer. Half the salon turns to look at her and she mouths a sheepish ‘sorry’.

‘She’s already baked two apple tarts and his electric blanket has been on for hours,’ I reply.

‘Jesus, he must be in a bad way.’

‘You know Mammy, any excuse to mollycoddle him.’

‘Still,’ Majella goes sympathetically, ‘it’s hard being newly single at Christmas, especially since all his friends are still Down Under.’

‘I know,’ I say, as Cliodhna nearly takes my scalp off with her acrylic nails. ‘I offered to pick him up from the airport but he said he’d get the Timoney’s bus and not be putting me out.’

Paul sounded fierce sorry for himself on the phone so I think he was being a martyr. I let him off because I’ve enough to be at and I’ve hardly time for the blow-dry even. Carol is doing up the last of the Christmas hampers at the café and operating a cold-food-only menu for the day, thinking it would be quiet enough with people out doing their Big Shops and Last Bits. She texted me half an hour ago to say we were out of pâté already and there was a queue nearly out the door for coffees. I must remember that for next year, assuming we’re still there. Right now, the thought of making it to another Christmas at BallyGoBrunch seems like climbing a fifth flight of stairs when the previous four have burnt the lungs out of your chest.

James hit the road early this morning, not even batting an eyelid when I asked him had he booked his airport parking, declaring that he’d just ‘find something in short term’. And him not back until New Year’s Day. The legs nearly went from under me. I was half-expecting him to ring me to say he was still driving around Dublin Airport five hours later, but all I got was a text of a picture of a pint and a ‘see you in six days’, smiley face.

Cliodhna is massaging the conditioner into my hair with what feels like knives when Lisa Gleeson opens the door, letting a blessed blast of freezing-cold air in.

‘Curly blow-dry, is it, hun?’ Sharon calls to her from where she’s examining what’s going on under Majella’s tinfoil, and Lisa nods in the affirmative, clocking Majella in the process and making a beeline for her. Cliodhna sits me up and wraps a towel like a vice around my head, absentmindedly asking me have I any holidays planned as she leads me to the chair beside Maj.

‘I’m actually going abroad for New Year’s …’

But she’s already gone back to the sinks to torture someone else.

‘I still can’t believe you’re ringing in the New Year in a lad’s house.’ Majella’s tone is a mixture of awe and disgust. This is the second year in a row I’ll be missing our traditional night out in the Vortex but, to be fair, we were both at Elaine and Ruby’s wedding last year. And anyway, maybe we’ve grown out of the Vortex. We’ve been going there since we were seventeen and Jocksy Cullen let us in even though he knew well we were underage. Daddy had slipped him a tenner in Maguire’s and told him we were good girls and he’d rather we were in there dancing to Justin Timberland than out drinking vodka in a field.

‘I can’t either, to be honest.’

Mammy took the news well. At least I think she did. It can be hard to tell sometimes.

‘Sure isn’t that alright, love? I’d expect you to be going out with him anyway.’

‘No, I mean I’m going to spend it with his family. In England.’

She went quiet for a second and I couldn’t read her face. But then she smiled. ‘Well, isn’t that lovely for you. You’ll have to take some local honey from the farm shop with you for his mother.’

‘Are you sure you don’t mind me going?’

‘Of course I don’t, pet. Whatever makes you happy. Now bring me down your nice pyjamas and I’ll iron them so you don’t make a show of us.’

‘What are you going to wear? Will you be going out?’

Majella’s face has started to turn puce under the halo of tinfoil, and the noise in the salon has cranked up another notch between Cillian’s yelps and the two hairdryers on the go. I shrug at Majella and make a pained face. ‘James said they have a party every year – in the house.’

‘Ah, shite. You can’t even escape. Good job you’re good with mams.’

As if on cue, the door opens and John’s mother, Fran, walks in. Behind her trots Megan, who must be going with them to Midnight Mass. She has the family stamp of approval so. Fran clocks us straight away. ‘Hello girls,’ she says with a nod and a tight smile. ‘Looks like we all had the same idea.’

‘Bad hair day!’ I blurt out, desperate to say something. Fran’s eyes narrow and she pats the back of her hair, which is cut short in that classic do that mams love.

‘Thank you, Aisling,’ she says curtly, turning to Megan, while I mutter, ‘I meant my own,’ and try to sink as low as I possibly can into my chair. Why can’t I just be normal around her?

‘Majella,’ Fran says sharply. ‘You might tell your father the Christmas tree he provided for the church altar has already dropped every needle and a bird’s nest fell out of it this morning.’

Majella nods obediently, her tinfoil wig rustling. Megan gives us a sweet smile and Cliodhna leads them to the waiting area and takes their tea order, which if it’s anything like mine will be delivered catastrophically wrong. Thank God for the Lindor, although we’re all supposed to be getting Trim for Tenerife. It was Maeve’s idea – something to keep us on the straight and narrow over Christmas, she said. ‘Don’t tell on me now,’ I say to Sharon, horsing into my third Lindor. She purses her lips and reaches for a comb but doesn’t say anything. They must be costing her a fortune.

‘Majella,’ Lisa says matter-of-factly, ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about meaningful poems to break up the speeches.’

I’ve told Majella I have a folder of those on my laptop. Lovely Poems. So handy.

‘Well, I came across one you might like.’ She picks up her phone and swipes through her notes. Maybe I’ve underestimated her. ‘Feck, I thought I had it here,’ she says, putting back down the phone and sounding frustrated. ‘You know the one, girls. He says something about stopping the clocks. And giving the dog a juicy bone?’

Me and Maj look at each other at the same time.

‘Does that one not mention mourners and coffins, Lisa?’ I ask tentatively. ‘I think it’s about funerals?’

‘Fairly sure it’s about funerals, hun.’ Sharon has momentarily stopped all the hairdryers to correct her.

Lisa looks confused and turns to me and Maj, who nods sagely. ‘Funerals, Lisa. Definitely funerals.’

Lisa goes back to the phone, furiously adding to her notes.

Sharon has me in the chair and six big curly brushes already in my hair before I know it, God bless her. I was afraid I was going to have to make small talk with Fran and Megan.

‘This will last you to Stephenses Day,’ she roars over the hairdryer.

I haven’t the heart to tell her I won’t be going out. It’s been such a hectic lead-up to Christmas that any plans for socialising have gone by the wayside. Plus, I’ll be working. No rest for the self-employed. I’m looking forward to my lie in tomorrow, though. Me and Paul used to get up at the crack of dawn when we were small, with Daddy roaring at us to go back to bed for an hour, although we could tell he didn’t mean it.

‘Enjoy your turkey and ham, hun.’ Sharon pulls the last section of hair into a perfect coil and combs through with her fingers. She whips the cape off and up I get, squeezing past Fran and Megan to get my coat.

‘Sorry now, happy Christmas. Sorry there.’

Sharon already has Lisa in the chair and is instructing Cliodhna to get Megan under the taps as I open the door, waving goodbye to Majella.

I step out onto the relative quiet of BGB’s Main Street, shake out my curls and relish the silence in my ears. Another stellar job by Sharon. I sneak a look in Marty Boland’s window and try to picture myself in the Matthewses’ ballroom or wherever their party will be.

‘Hiya, Ais.’

His voice sounds different. It’s been only on the phone or on Skype for so long. I turn and Paul is standing on the street, massive GAA hold-all over his shoulder, black circles under his eyes. Beside him is John, shuffling his feet in the cold and jangling his car keys.

‘John passed me at the bus stop outside Heuston. Thanks, lad.’ He shakes John’s hand and John gives me a nod and I sort of lurch towards him and we awkwardly half-hug, so quick that it’s like we’re each made of scalding oil.

He steps back, nods at Paul again and gives him a little dig on the shoulder. ‘Mind yourself now. You look like a boiled shite. Go on and get a good night’s sleep and some home-cooked food.’ Paul manages a watery smile as John turns his attention back to me. ‘Are you all finished up yourself for the Christmas, Ais?’

‘I am, yeah. We’ve been flat out. I’m dying to get home.’

‘Let me guess – new pyjamas ready to go,’ he says, giving me a gentle nudge with his elbow. Of course he knows this, given he used to be the one buying them. He always had a good eye for nightwear. Cosy and functional, just the way I like it.

‘Old habits,’ I reply quietly. ‘You can’t be waking up on Christmas morning in old pyjamas.’

‘Pablo says you’re away for New Year’s.’

‘That’s right, yeah. Bit of a change of scenery.’

‘I suppose I’ll see you next year so,’ he says.

I’m no stranger to a late December ‘see you next year’ gag myself, but coming from John it feels weird.

‘Happy Christmas,’ I say. And with that he’s gone into the salon and straight over to Megan.

Paul is next for the awkward hug, and with that out of the way I gesture with my head. ‘Come on. The car is over here. He’s right, you do look wrecked.’