Helen slipped out of bed, pulling on her dressing gown and slippers quietly, so as not to disturb Paddy. How could he sleep with all the excitement of Amy’s engagement! Her mind was racing, filled with plans and lists and ideas! Trying not to wake him, she went downstairs to the kitchen and plugged on the kettle. She liked it when the house was still and quiet, sleeping. It gave her time to think, the only noise the sound of a thrush singing somewhere out in the trees.
As the pale sun began to rise she curled up on the window seat with the warm mug of tea in her hand. She still couldn’t believe that Amy was all grown-up now and was engaged! It only seemed like yesterday that the kitchen had been littered with a high chair and a playpen and baby toys; then there had been Lego sets and Barbies, My Little Ponies and Sylvanian Families, Nintendos and Amy’s rollerblades! Where had those years gone? Soon Amy would be married and creating a family of her own!
All the birds were leaving the nest: Ronan, their twenty-six-year-old, was living with his Polish girlfriend, Krista, in a house in Ranelagh with a few friends. And Ciara, their youngest, who was still in college, had made it quite clear that as soon as she was able to leave home she’d be gone, too. Soon there would be just Paddy and herself and Barney the dog left rattling around the house. Helen suddenly felt old, as if a big chapter of her life was beginning to close while another one opened.
She glanced at the clock. It was only 6.55 a.m. She made another cup of tea and some toast for herself. She was dying to phone Fran Brennan with the news. She’d give her best friend another hour. When Paddy was up and dressed they’d phone Dan’s parents. She had met Eddie and Carmel Quinn only once, briefly, when they had bumped into each other at a charity fund-raising concert with Amy, but they had seemed nice. Hopefully they were equally pleased about the engagement, and the fact that they were all going to be in-laws. She was dying to tell everyone the good news. Her eighty-four-year-old mother Sheila would be thrilled with the romance of the proposal in Italy and news of her first grandchild’s wedding. It would give Sheila something to look forward to: at her age, births, marriages and deaths became huge milestones.
From her friends, Helen knew that a daughter’s wedding was fun but also a lot of work. It was going to be such a happy time, and she couldn’t wait till Amy got home to sit down and talk about their wonderful wedding plans! It was so exciting!
Helen put Barney on the lead as she crossed over to Fran’s house. Fran, in her navy tracksuit, congratulated Helen with a big hug as the two of them set off for their regular morning walk through Linden Crescent and down through the big public park close by.
‘Go on, tell me all about it. I love news of engagements and weddings!’ Fran encouraged. Katie, her eldest daughter, had got married only three years ago. She had enjoyed every minute of organizing the wedding – and now was the proud granny of two-year-old Saoirse.
‘Well, it was very romantic,’ Helen began, retelling the whole story about the proposal overlooking the canal in Venice.
‘Lucky Amy,’ said Fran enviously. ‘When Tom and I got engaged it wasn’t very romantic! I was twelve weeks pregnant with Greg. Poor Tom nearly had a fit. We were terrified telling our families. I think Gladys Brennan thought that I was a brazen hussy and had trapped her son and forced him into marrying me. Funny, because when Greg was born she was mad about him. He was her favourite out of all her sixteen grandchildren.’
‘I remember when Paddy asked me to marry him it was coming up to Christmas and my family was upstairs in bed. You could hear my dad snoring!’
‘Talk about romance.’ Fran laughed.
‘We were sitting at the fire with the Christmas tree lights on and Paddy took me totally by surprise when he proposed. We bought the ring the next day in town, and came home and told my parents. It’s so different to now. Couples fly off somewhere exotic, like New York or Paris or Venice, to pop the question!’
‘Engagements are great! But they’re nothing compared to the wedding, as that’s what it’s all about!’ insisted Fran. ‘You know me, I love weddings.’
‘You are such an old romantic,’ Helen teased. Fran couldn’t see a wedding car pass or watch a bride going into a church without getting emotional.
‘But when it’s your own daughter’s wedding it’s so much fun, Helen, I promise. I know there’s a lot of work and stress organizing things, but it’s great. I loved it! It’s just such a special time. I really enjoyed helping Katie organize her wedding, and I’m sure that Amy’s wedding is going to be wonderful. You’re going to have such fun!’
‘I hope so.’
‘Have you met Dan’s parents yet?’ quizzed Fran.
‘Only very briefly, but I think we should have a family get-together dinner when Amy and Dan get home. The dad, Eddie, seems grand, but Carmel . . . I’m not that sure about her. She’s tall and very elegant and rather full of herself. A bit intimidating!’
‘Do you remember I had the mother-in-law from hell?’
Helen laughed, remembering Fran’s mother-in-law, Gladys, who had visited every Sunday and always complained about the dinner Fran had made.
‘She was a right rip! She had me scalded. Nothing I could ever say or do was good enough for her. She criticized my cooking, my cleaning, my childrearing, my weight.’
‘At least she spoke to you.’ Helen laughed. ‘Bridey O’Connor didn’t speak to me for years. She thought I wasn’t good enough for Paddy. She rarely visited, and made me feel so unwelcome when we used to go down to Cork that eventually I stopped going.’
‘But you were good to her in the end, Helen.’
‘She was Paddy’s mother. I wouldn’t have it on my conscience not to be good to her.’
‘God, I hope we don’t end up like that with our daughters-in-law,’ worried Fran.
‘You and Sandra get on like a house on fire – although of course she isn’t actually married to Greg,’ teased Helen. ‘Anyhow, I don’t think Carmel’s that bad. It’s just she’s rather distant and caught up in her own life.’
They walked along the leaf-strewn paths, turning down by the lake, where Barney barked at the ducks dabbling in the muddy water. Then they passed by the new playground, where a few mothers watched toddlers playing on the swings and slides.
‘Pity they didn’t have that here when ours were young,’ said Helen aloud.
‘Are you mad? We’d never have got them out of it! I brought little Saoirse here when I was minding her one day last week, and I had to bodily lift her, hysterical, from the swings, and she screamed the park down. A woman came over to check that I wasn’t kidnapping her.’
‘Things have changed so much.’ Helen laughed. ‘We used to let our kids run around this place on their own. The only worry was that they’d fall in the water with the ducks. We’d be called unfit mothers these days for letting them loose in the park without an adult.’
‘Do you remember the time my Lisa walked to the shopping centre? She can’t have been more than three years old and the security guard brought her home.’
‘You hadn’t even missed her,’ said Helen. ‘God, it was so easy and uncomplicated then.’
After doing another circuit of the park they turned for home and a celebratory cup of coffee back in Helen’s place, with Fran promising to give her an idea of how to start planning a wedding.