IN ONE YEAR, AOIFE will be sixty.
It has been there on the horizon, something she had hoped to hide, to cover over. It has been there like an icecap beneath the crash and swirl, the hiss of the white seafoam. It is a year away. Who will throw her a party? And who will come? Already, she can feel the sense of failure that will settle on everything; the politeness of her guests, their quiet irritation, the dreary obligation to attend. They will be pulled from every brittle thread of her life – someone she knows from church, someone she used to share the school run with, someone she was friendly with when she did that accountancy course. None of them will know her very well, none of them will like her very much; and the fact of that will be undeniable amongst the pavlova roulade, the princess-warmed chicken fricassee, the balloons in tastefully muted shades – only two colours, three, at most. She knows this, because she has attended two sixtieth birthday parties already this year.
Valerie. It will have to be Valerie who throws the party. That will take the vanity out of it. That will excuse the tenuousness of the guestlist.
*
This year’s birthday is slipping quietly by. This morning, she got a card from Valerie via email. It took a while to load – Valerie’s face on the body of a tango dancer, the little tat-tat- tat of the music, the words ‘Happy Birthday Mum’ jangling on the screen. Valerie went back to London with no excuse. No audition or profit share. No boyfriend. Soon, Valerie will be thirty. Last night, Brendan took Aoife for dinner at a restaurant they used to frequent when they were first married. She realised how rarely they do that, these days. The restaurant has since changed hands – there’s a new menu. The chips came in a wooden bucket with silver handles, like a miniature coal scuttle. Brendan drank three beers and a cocktail and ordered too much wine. He seemed bored, impatient for her to reach tipsiness. When her dessert arrived, it had a cocktail umbrella in it, and a single candle: red and white twirled together like a barber’s pole. Two wait staff stood by while she blew it out. One of them clapped after; the other walked away. She understood, like a revelation, what the candles meant: another year snuffed out. The wax melted onto the icing and hardened there.
Afterwards, Brendan fell asleep lying diagonally across their bed in his shoes. She removed her earrings in the mirror, and she didn’t look away from the bagginess of her face and the ugly dissatisfaction of her mouth. She kept looking as she undressed, and would not let herself pull in her stomach as she released it from the band of her tights.
*
She will be prepared for her sixtieth birthday. She has booked a Botox consultation, and joined the new gym. She bought the Canadian leggings Valerie recommended – very expensive, but worth it, with special elastic in them to flatten her tummy and lift her bum. The girl in the shop said she looked ‘fab’ in them. Today is her first Zumba class. She’s left them in their trendy bag, wrapped in silver paper. She will enjoy opening them; a little birthday present to herself.
*
She is rolling up her special lightweight sports towel, trying to ignore the churn in her bowels, trying not to wonder who will be at the class – if they will be younger than her or thinner than her, if they will sneer at her efforts – when she hears her phone downstairs on the hall table.
It’s Davitt Dunlin.
‘Davitt.’
‘Aoife, hi. How are you?’
‘I’m fabulous, thanks. Really well.’
‘I forwarded you an email there.’
‘Oh?’
‘Now, I don’t want you to worry – it’s your niece. I know you thought she was trying to interfere with things, and you’re right, but I don’t want you to worry.’
‘Freya?’
‘Oh, I’m not sure. No, I don’t think it was Freya… let me see now… Cara. That’s the elder one, is it?’
‘Yeah. Hang on. I’m switching on the computer now. Bloody thing.’
‘Aoife?’
‘It’s very slow. Hang on now…’
‘Aoife, I’ve another call coming in. Let me know how you want me to reply, will you? Give me a call when you’ve read it.’
Aoife settles herself in her husband’s swivel chair, logs into her account and waits with agitation for the emails to load. As she reads, she swallows again and again. Her mouth is stubbornly dry.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: carakearneyillustrations@gmail.com
Date: 20 October 2018 at 6:04 PM
Subject: RE: Molly Kearney
Dear Mr Dunlin,
I am Molly Kearney’s eldest granddaughter, Cara Kearney. We have met on occasions when you called to my grandmother’s house.
I know that my grandmother holds you in very high regard and trusts you completely. She still talks of the way you were as a young boy. I have no doubt that you practise your profession with the highest of ethical standards. Some days my grandmother tells me, ‘I can trust Davitt Dunlin’ a dozen times.
However, some recent events have led myself and my sister to believe that our grandmother’s funds are being tampered with. She speaks of people telling her to sign things, and being unsure of what those things are.
Some days she is in utter panic about money and says over and over, ‘I need to speak to Davitt Dunlin alone.’
She is sometimes very distressed because family members have, she says, been ‘giving out’ about the will, but that it will be sorted out.
What has kept me from acting so far is a fear that distress and humiliation might be caused to my grandmother were the issue to become an area of open dispute. Unfortunately, it has become too obvious a problem to ignore. While I understand that the measures we will need to take may not be your concern, I believe that the first step is to, at the very least, contact you to inform you that these concerns exist. An incident that my grandmother, in great distress, told me about some weeks ago, was one in which ‘a very large sum’ was transferred to a family member.
She said that you were involved in this transaction. This may or may not be the case, but it has occurred to me that you may not have been informed of my grandmother’s mental state at this time, and that she may have seemed lucid to you. However, at time of writing, there are days when my grandmother does not know where she is. She also sees people who aren’t there and is in a state of extreme confusion much of the time.
I feel it is necessary, at the very least, to make you aware that, while my grandmother is doing much better, she is often unaware of where she is, saying, ‘When will they let me go home?’ She speaks to my grandfather, who is not there, and some days believes that he is still alive. Sometimes she believes that she has just attended my five-year-old nephew’s wedding, and speaks to him about it. In short, since she broke her hip she has been in no fit state to transfer money or alter her will, and, while I am still in the process of investigating the legalities, I am quite certain that altering a will is not something that can or should be done by other family members. I do not know whether this has happened, but I do know that she believes she has been ‘told’ to sign things changing the will.
I am hoping that I might meet with you to discuss these concerns.
I hope you are not offended by my correspondence. I wish only to make you aware of the complexity of the current situation, and that I am seeking legal advice. I wish also to have it on record that I have expressed these concerns.
I am, however, concerned that my grandmother would feel humiliated were she aware that I was stating that she has not been of sound mind since her fall. I would ask that you deal with it sensitively and that my letter remain confidential.
I can be contacted at this email address.
Regards,
Cara Kearney