With my new pine table and six matching chairs finally in situ, Mammy is on her way in for a cup of tea. I’ve lured her over with the chance to nose around the cottage, but I really want an update on the Trevor/Cara/Síomha situation. I think I’ve gone above and beyond with the baby shower invite, and I want to talk to her about what I heard in the toilets in Castlefarrow. It’s still niggling away at me. She’s been keen to come in for a look since the place has come together, but I’ve been up the walls between planning the launch for the Hairy Mollies new at-home wax kit, commuting up and down and trying to keep Majella’s Babe Shower on topic. One of her cousins posted something yesterday about an amazing opportunity for stay-at-home mams. She said they could be earning €40K a year in their spare time while being their own boss. I had to stop Denise Kelly from investing her life savings in what is clearly an essential oils pyramid scheme.
Majella has mentioned several times now that she doesn’t want the usual baby shower games and has explicitly banned the one where guests have to eat melted chocolate out of nappies. She’s excited about the Guess the Baby Photoshopped onto the Stripper Body game I’ve devised, and thrilled with the DJ arriving at seven because she’s hoping it goes all night. I’m not sure a sesh is what Americans intended when they exported the concept of baby showers, but I suppose they’ve been around long enough now that we’re putting our own Irish spin on them, a bit like what we’ve done with Chinese food.
The noise of the front door handle rattling interrupts my rearranging of tea towels on the Aga.
‘Hellooo?’ I swing around to see Mammy’s face pressed against one of the windows. ‘Anyone home?’
‘Why didn’t you just ring the bell?’ I ask when I open the door. ‘It’s right there.’
‘Ring the bell? At my daughter’s house? Well, la-di-da!’
Between New York and the time I spent living with Sadhbh in Dublin, I’d forgotten that BGB operates a strict open-door policy. You simply have to be ready for callers at all times, whether you like it or not. The Truck nearly caught me in the nip the other night when he was dropping in a soundbar for the gym. I had to hide behind my new Orla Kiely oven glove. It’s a stressful way to live, so John and I have decided to keep the door locked. Since we’ve no front hall, it’s the only way to get a bit of privacy.
Mammy bustles in, shaking her coat on to the back of one of my new kitchen chairs. ‘Oh, they’re gorgeous, Aisling. Not a mark on them.’
‘Thanks, I’m delighted with them, I must say.’
The table and chairs were a display model in Knock Garden Centre – a bargain at forty per cent off. And I got them to throw in free delivery too. Although I would have made John pick them up if I’d known Mad Tom was the driver. He took the wing mirror off my Micra backing the van into the driveway. All his training is starting to pay off if the way he was able to carry two chairs in each hand is anything to go by. He’s getting great wear out of his crop top too.
‘Guess who did a line with Murt Kelly back in the seventies?’
‘Ehhh, Tessie Daly?’
‘Jesus, no, she’d never land a man like Murt. Auntie Christine.’
‘No way!’ Daddy’s sister lives in Scotland now and sends Christmas cards with ten-pound notes in them every year.
‘Eileen Kelly raised a family of seven here. Murt was the eldest.’
‘In two bedrooms?’
‘It was what people did at the time,’ she says, depositing a white cardboard box from BallyGoBrunch on the kitchen table. ‘Madness, really, what women put themselves through. I got us some of Carol’s coffee choux buns. Is the kettle on? Show me everything, now, go on.’
I take her around the cottage, pointing out the new floor in the bedroom which John sanded and stained himself, the pedal bin with sections for normal rubbish, recycling and food waste, and all the Carolyn Donnelly Eclectic bits I’ve been picking up in Dunnes on my lunch breaks. Carolyn never puts a foot wrong, as far as I’m concerned.
‘You have the place looking gorgeous,’ Mammy says when she eventually takes a seat at the table and I pass her a cup of tea. ‘I’ll have to get you a few cuttings from Úna Hatton’s hydrangeas. You can put a planter on either side of the front door. It’ll look very dressy. How’s John?’
‘Flat to the mat in the gym,’ I say, helping myself to a choux bun. ‘Literally. He’s doing strength training this morning with the Rangers under-seventeens. He has the Knock Rovers then in the afternoon. They have to be kept apart – you know yourself. And Sumira Singh is going to do an over-sixties yoga class on a Tuesday evening. You should go. Keep you limber.’
‘I have bridge club on Tuesdays, love. Trevor is after joining us.’
God, it’s like they’re joined at the hip. ‘Oh lovely.’
‘Constance is a bit put out that she’s had to pair up with Padraig Whelan. She says he smells like creosote. He’s a mighty bridge player all the same.’
I clear my throat. ‘And how is … Dr Trevor?’
Mammy’s face lights up. ‘Oh, he’s very well, and asking for you, of course. I’ll tell him you say hello.’
‘Yeah, do.’ There’s an awkward silence as I try and figure out how to phrase this without her losing the head. ‘About him, actually, Mammy. I heard something I think you should know.’
‘About Trevor?’ She puts her cup on the table, a look of concern crossing her face. ‘What is it? Nothing bad, I hope.’
‘No! No. Well, actually, I don’t know.’
‘Go on, spit it out, Aisling. You obviously have something you want to get off your chest.’ There’s an edge to her voice now that I recognise from when I used to leave behind bits of lamb from her stew because you can only chew meat for so long without getting a tension headache.
‘He’s had’ – I decide to just blurt the words out – ‘loads of other girlfriends since his wife died. I just wanted you to know because I can see things are getting serious between the pair of you. I’m worried he might be a serial romancer or something.’
She picks up her cup and takes a sip, one eyebrow raised. ‘A serial romancer?’
‘You know what I mean. A bit of a ladies’ man.’
‘And who told you this?’
‘His own daughters. Well, not in so many words. I overheard them talking in the hotel. They were being little rips.’
Mammy puts her cup down with a sigh. ‘I thought you girls were getting along a bit better now?’
‘Well, I invited them to the shower. And I didn’t have to. I’m just telling you what I heard.’
‘Aisling, Trevor and I are in our sixties. Still. Just about. We’ve both been married before. You don’t get to our age and think keeping secrets is a good way to go on in a relationship. You don’t keep secrets from John, do you?’
‘God no.’ I mean, I used to when we were going out the first time around. I never told him my hopes or dreams for our future together. I thought he’d just figure it out himself eventually. That was my biggest mistake, and what drove a wedge between us. It all seems so silly now, how angry I used to get every time we went on a Pigsback discounted mini-break and he didn’t end up down on one knee. Since we’ve been back together, I’m an open book, even more so since the miscarriage. I showed him a chin hair yesterday.
‘Well, Trevor and I have no secrets either. He’s been very honest about the companions he’s had since Valerie died, thank you very much.’
‘Are you not afraid he might, I don’t know, do the dirt on you?’
‘Do the dirt? What are you on about, Aisling?’ She’s getting exasperated.
‘Like, cheat on you. Go out with someone else while you’re golfing with Constance.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘No, I’m not one bit afraid of that. I know all about the other women. Bernie, they were stepping out for just a few months before she left him for a Welsh train driver. Very callous by all accounts. And Madeleine from Kilkenny, the chemistry just wasn’t there. They’re still in touch. And there was also Doreen, and Mary before her. Síomha and Cara don’t know about them, but he told me because communication is important. He’s a handsome man, Aisling. Of course he has women interested in him.’
My eyes are rolling before I can stop them. Sometimes when I’m around Mammy I revert back to being a teenager. Not that I was particularly angsty, and I certainly wasn’t a troublemaker, bar the one time me and Majella drank a naggin of Bacardi in the calving shed and were found under a pile of straw with That Bloody Cat the next morning, but I just become a little wagon. I usually hate myself for it afterwards, and when I see Mammy’s eyes filling with tears I want to throw myself headfirst through the front door. ‘Ah, Mammy, I’m sorry. It’s just all a bit wild, you know? So much is changing.’
‘I know, pet. I’ve been throwing a lot at you, and you’ve been a great girl. I just feel very –’ She cries harder here and I pull my chair closer. ‘I feel very lucky to have met him. I know you’ll be skitting at me saying that.’
‘I’m not skitting, Mammy. I promise.’ I can’t deny it is way out of my comfort zone to be talking with her like this, but I have to remember I’m an adult.
‘Well, if Paul was here he’d be skitting.’
‘He would, that’s fair.’
She takes a deep breath and picks up her cup. ‘I actually have something I want to talk to you both about, but I’ll tell you now because it will probably affect you more. I’ll get Paul on the Zoom later.’
My stomach drops. They’re getting married. They’re already married. She’s pregnant. No, almost certainly not. She’s sixty-six.
She puts the cup down. ‘Aisling, I want to sell the farm.’
It’s as if time momentarily slows down. The sound of the sheep bleating outside becomes a roar, and I know that if I try to stand up my knees will buckle under me. My heart is pounding. Mammy wants to sell the farm? Our home? Where is she going to go? Where will I go?
She reaches out and puts a hand on my forearm. I notice she’s still wearing her rings from Daddy. ‘Love, I know this will have come as a shock to you, so I’m not expecting you to say anything or do anything for the moment. I just needed to let you know.’
‘But why? Why would you even be thinking about selling it?’ It comes out a wail and I’m immediately embarrassed. If I regress any more, I’ll be sucking my thumb next.
‘I just think it’s time, pet,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s a lot of work, and someone younger could make a much better fist of it. Paul has no interest and neither do you.’
‘But you love running the eco farm. Were you not only saying recently that it gave you a new lease of life?’
She nods. ‘And it did. Throwing myself into setting it up helped me get over your father’s death. I believe it was his last gift to me, I really do. I want to enjoy my old age, not work myself into the grave. Trevor and I want to travel and make the most of our time together. The thoughts of facing into another winter is too much. I’m ready to retire, Aisling.’
‘And what about Constance? She’s your partner – does she not get a say in all this?’
‘She’s in the same boat as myself. She wants to play golf and go to the races of a weekend.’
‘But where will you live?’
‘That’s the other thing. Trevor and myself, we were thinking I could downsize in or around Ballygobbard. An apartment or maybe one of those new townhouses in Knocknamanagh where Constance lives.’ There was fierce skitting when the sign went up for the ‘townhouses’, especially from BGB-ers thrilled to point out that Knock is getting above its station. ‘And Trevor wants to look at buying something in the west. Maybe a little bungalow with a garden. We’d both love to be by the sea.’
‘So you’d …?’
‘Move between both, ideally. We’d be able to see you and have a base to see Cara and Síomha, and then you could come and visit us on the Wild Atlantic Way anytime you wanted.’
Wow. They really have it all figured out. I struggle to take it all in, fighting conflicting emotions of sadness and anger and guilt before blurting out, ‘Don’t sell it, Mammy. Me and John can help you. We can’t let it go. What would Daddy say?’
She gives me a sharp look. ‘Aisling, I can’t have you holding that over me. I won’t. Daddy would be happy that I was happy. Would you have me hoovering out yurts into my seventies? I know he wouldn’t. And he’d hate anyone to be sticking with the farm out of obligation. And anyway, when would you help me?’
She’s got me there. I’m fairly busy myself, and so is John. ‘On the weekends.’
‘That’s a nice idea, Aisling, but I’m going to retire. I’ve made up my mind.’
‘We can hire someone to run it! There has to be another way. You can’t just sell the farm. Granny would hate it.’
‘Granny is long gone, Aisling. I think it will be okay.’
‘Paul might want it – you never know.’
‘Paul is happy out down in Oz. He has his own life, and I won’t be interrupting it and putting it on him to run the family farm. That’s what happened your father and I won’t be repeating history. Times have changed.’
‘What do you mean that’s what happened Daddy? He was never in Australia. The furthest he ever went was Wales on your honeymoon.’
‘I mean he was obligated to take it over. He was the eldest and none of his siblings had a blind bit of interest. I’ve spoken to them all and they’re happy for me to do what I want.’
This is news to me. In my head, Daddy was born in a pair of wellies and a tweed flat cap talking about moving sheep. ‘How do you mean forced? Couldn’t he have said no?’
‘His older brother died, pet. Your uncle Malachy, God rest him. Long before your father and I even met. But his death changed the course of your father’s life in more ways than one.’ I knew Uncle Malachy had died, of course. He drowned off the coast of Wexford in a fishing accident along with one of his friends. He was only twenty-two. There’s a plaque down there to commemorate it. ‘He had aspirations to train as a carpenter but the obligation put paid to that.’
‘But he loved being a farmer. He did it his whole life.’
‘That was your father through and through. What point was there complaining about it? So he threw himself into it, but you can be sure it wasn’t his first choice. It’s not an easy life.’
My eyes dart over the surface of the pine table, taking all this information in. I can’t imagine anyone but us on that farm, feeding baby lambs and always, always watching out the back kitchen window for the weather to turn. Could I put myself at that window for the next forty years? ‘Okay then, how about I take it over?’
Mammy looks at me sceptically. ‘You’ll take it over? Take over the animals and the eco farm and run the whole place?’
‘Yeah? Why not? I’m the eldest. Isn’t that how it goes?’
‘And what about John?’
‘He’ll run it with me. He can do courses. We both can. I get loads of farmers popping up on my Instagram. It’s gone very modern.’
‘It would be a huge undertaking, Aisling. You have your own job, your own career to think about. I’m happy to let the farm go.’
‘Well, I’m not.’