I crawl into John’s arms the second I wake up, still so early according to the light and the birdsong. Mostly asleep, he turns on his back and allows my head to rest on his chest, his arm tight around my shoulders.
‘John?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Will we plant some flowers?’
‘Whatever you want. Shhh. It’s very early.’
‘For the baby, I mean. Something that comes back every year. Like a thing to remember it by. Is that silly?’
He stretches his neck, waking himself up. ‘That’s not silly at all. It’s actually a lovely idea. Where will we do it?’
‘We could just do it here at the cottage? Out the kitchen window?’
‘What if we mo– actually, never mind. That’s perfect.’
‘Let’s do it next weekend.’ I close my eyes then, but ten seconds later open them again. ‘John?’
He sighs. ‘Yes, my sweet angel of the dawn.’
‘You should talk to your mother.’
‘About what?’ The gentle mocking tone is gone from his voice.
‘Nothing bad. Nothing to worry about. Just talk to her. Ask her about her babies.’
He twists his head to look down at me, curious. ‘Okay, so.’
We settle into a few minutes of silence again. He’s next to speak.
‘Aisling?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Are you feeling okay about today?’
Am I feeling okay about today? I know I’m feeling anxious that it all goes well. I’m feeling wary of Cara and Síomha. I’m feeling excited about spending a day with my friends. I’m feeling sad for Sadhbh and Don. But I don’t know how I’m feeling about the fact that this could have been a joint baby shower and this cottage could have been full of flat-pack baby furniture and a big bouncy ball. I couldn’t have done anything differently, so I can’t even wish I could go back in time and change things. I’m aching for what could have been but excited for what is.
I reach around John’s head and scratch behind his ear, like a dog. He immediately turns and presses himself to me.
‘I’m feeling okay about today. I don’t know how I’ll feel later, but right now I feel okay.’
He kisses my face and down my neck. ‘Good. Me too.’
‘How are you getting to the bus later?’
‘Titch is picking me and Pablo up, and he’ll leave his car in the village.’
‘Tony Timoney won’t know what hit him.’
Three hours and a hearty breakfast later John is heading out the door for the lads’ day out with Pablo.
‘Did you hear from Don if he’s coming?’
‘He was never able to come – he had something with one of his old schoolfriends this weekend so he’s out. Has Sadhbh decided if she’s going to the baby shower?’
‘She just texted me there to say she is.’
‘It’ll be a good distraction for her, maybe?’
‘She’s my diversion for when the stripper arrives.’
John puts his bus cans into a backpack, shaking his head and laughing. ‘Should I be worried about this stripper?’
‘You should be worried for the stripper when Maj claps eyes on him.’
Titch Maguire pulls up outside and gives a little bip. I stand at the door and wave them off, Pablo already in the front seat wearing a ‘Papa to Be’ baseball cap.
‘Have fun. Don’t lose Pablo. Majella’s going to really need him in about a month’s time.’
****
I want to get to Mammy’s before Cara and Síomha so I can collect some of the decorations I have stashed there and not have them watching me loading them into the Micra and sweating. Or even worse, having them help. I try calling the cat as I walk from the car to the house, even though Mammy has already texted me to say there’s been no sign. In the kitchen, my eyes sweep around all the usual places – on the armchair, on top of the presses, on the windowsill – but she’s not there. Maybe she’s gone off somewhere to die, like an elephant. Maybe she somehow got wind of Mammy wanting to sell the farm and she’s taken off before she can be removed by force.
Up in my bedroom, I take down the balloon stands and bunting I ordered online from the top of the wardrobe. I feel under the bed for the box full of packets of balloons, pumps, tinsel curtains, penis straws, soother necklaces and fake dollar bills. Truly the most deranged set of party decorations ever collected together. Mammy gives me a hand bringing the stuff downstairs and I take it out to the car, stacking it in the boot. I race back upstairs to change into my dress for the shower but end up sitting on my bed in my underwear for a few minutes to cool down. It is a hot day to be drinking in a ballroom with a pregnant lady and a stripper.
I try to imagine this as me and John’s home. Us running the farm and the gym and the house. Maybe we’d get a dog. Maybe we’d have children here. Or maybe it will be someone else’s house entirely. And they’ll never know that me and Majella did a seance in the sitting room and nearly burnt the place down when Majella’s granny made herself known by knocking over the Forever Friends candle we were using to summon her. They’ll never know that Paul broke his leg falling down the stairs and I got in trouble for laughing instead of getting help straight away. In my defence, I thought he was messing, and he had recently been kneeling on my neck telling me to stop hitting myself. Not a jury in the land would convict me. They’ll never know how many nights I cried in this room over boys or fights or quadratic equations.
Through the open window, I hear Mammy out the back calling the cat again, so I throw on my dress and run down to her, grabbing the Dreamies as I go out the back door. Just as I do, Cara’s Volkswagen Beetle swings in the gate and crunches up the driveway. Great, it looks like we’re out here as a welcoming party for the two queens of Sheba. Síomha gives a half-hearted wave as Mammy directs Cara to park on the far side of the Micra. I shake the Dreamies absentmindedly and then stop abruptly as I hear an unmistakable and plaintive cry coming from what seems like the far side of the small shed.
‘Mammy, listen.’ I shake the Dreamies again, and around the corner of the shed pops That Bloody Cat, roaring like she hasn’t been fed in a week. Well, maybe she hasn’t, in fairness. She stops and stretches as if to goad us into waiting even longer for her. Mammy is overcome and shouts joyfully at Cara and Síomha, who are still in the car, ‘The cat’s come home to welcome you girls!’ Cara gestures a circling motion at Mammy, obviously not getting that this raggedy animal has been missing for days, and probably not caring either. Puss starts to trot towards us just as Cara shifts her gears and her reversing light comes on. I barely have time to let the ‘No!’ leave my lips before the car moves back and, THLUNK, rolls over its victim with a tiny bump. Cara looks from me to Mammy, taking in our stricken faces. The car jolts forward and cuts out as she lifts her feet off the pedals in a panic. I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them a tiny sliver to confirm that if the cat wasn’t lost to us before, she certainly is now. We all sit and stand in silence for ten seconds, Mammy with one hand over her eyes and the other pointing to Tiger’s mangled body. The reality of what’s just happened hits Síomha, and she steps out of the car and looks towards the back wheels as I roar out another ‘No!’
‘Omigod, omigod, omigod.’ That’s Cara hyperventilating in the driver’s seat. Síomha stands stock still with her hands over her mouth. Cara slowly pulls the handle on her door and exits the car, moving towards the rear. Mammy, eyes open now, shouts at her, ‘No, Cara, no, don’t look at it. There’s no need.’
Cara bursts into tears. ‘I’m so sorry. Omigod, I’m so, so sorry. It was an accident. Oh my God, I can’t believe I did that.’ She leans on the car for support. ‘I think I’m going to get sick.’
Mammy moves towards her then. ‘Come on inside with me – you got an awful fright. Come in where it’s cool and get some water.’
Cara allows herself to be led inside while Síomha just stands in the same position, eyes darting around like a trapped bird. For some reason, I feel like I’m going to laugh. The shock, maybe. I turn on my heel and follow Mammy and Cara inside, grab the cordless and go into the hall to punch in Willy Foley’s number, which is handily Sellotaped to the back of the phone along with the nearest Garda station and the Chinese. Willy answers on the second ring.
‘Hiya, Willy, are you around on the farm by any chance? Oh great, could you come down to the house? There’s been an incident with the poor cat. Yes, she came home but, eh, there’s just been an accident. Look for the Beetle.’
Síomha is inside when I go back into the kitchen, silently sitting on a chair. Cara is still gasping, and Mammy is patting her shoulder in circles, making shushing noises.
Cara looks at me in desperation. ‘It was an accident, Aisling. I really didn’t mean it.’
‘Of course it was an accident, pet.’ Mammy continues her patting. ‘That old cat had already used up twenty lives anyway.’
‘We didn’t see it at all.’ Síomha finds her voice. ‘We didn’t know anything until we hit it.’
Cara breaks down in tears again. ‘How are we going to explain this to Dad?’
‘We’ll all tell him it was an accident and it couldn’t be helped.’ Mammy catches my eye. ‘Aisling, get the brandy from the front room.’
When I come back with the bottle, Mammy has two little glasses out and then goes back and gets a third one for herself. She pours three decent measures before raising her eyebrows at me.
I shake my head. ‘I have to drive us to the Mountrath.’ As I sink into the chair opposite Síomha, I hear Willy on the four-wheeler pulling up outside the house. I think he’ll be able to figure it out for himself.
Mammy takes a swig of her brandy before encouraging the girls. ‘It’s good for your nerves. Come on, for the cat.’ They both take swigs, screwing up their eyes in disgust.
‘Hang on.’ I run back into the sitting room and grab two tiny cans of ginger ale from the drinks cabinet. I thrust them at the girls across the table. ‘It’ll be much nicer with this. My dad said brandy and ginger ale could cure anything.’
Cara tries to smile and Síomha mutters her thanks.
My phone dings and I grab it off the counter. It’s Sinéad and Dee in the baby-shower group that doesn’t include Majella, wondering where I am with the decorations. They said they’d help. Aubrey will be arriving shortly too, with Hannah in tow. Might as well make a workday out of it.
‘Do you need to get going, Aisling?’ Mammy asks, and Síomha groans.
‘We can’t go now. We can’t kill your cat and then go to your friend’s baby shower with all your other friends. Someone will deck us. And I wouldn’t blame them.’
Mammy knocks back the rest of her brandy. ‘Of course you can come. Girls, this is a farm and animals come and go. Ye were very good to be making an effort to come for Majella, and for me. It means a lot.’ She puts a hand over Cara’s. ‘Isn’t that right, Aisling?’
‘Oh yeah, yeah, of course you have to come. And like Mammy said, the cat was on her last legs anyway.’ If I’m honest with myself, despite the shock, I’m relieved. At least we know what happened to her, and we know she died quickly and hopefully painlessly. I had awful visions of her never coming home, or coming home and then getting slowly sicker and having to be put down. At least it’s over now.
Cara grabs Mammy’s hand now. ‘You’re being so nice to us.’
‘Sure, aren’t you great girls? Now, will we get ourselves together and hit the road?’
I really could have done with that brandy.