“I grew up on a dairy farm,” Jean says. “I milked cows before I went to school, and again in the evening when I was home. I hated it.”
“Oh, wow.” I get the impression she doesn’t usually give out this information freely.
“I decided that I was going to be a doctor when I was three years old.”
“Wow,” I say again. “Fair play to you.”
“I didn’t have any other choice,” she says, pursing her lips.
I want to ask her why she felt she had no choice other than to make a career decision as a toddler. Being in Jean’s presence for two minutes is already making me stressed. I know her type. She’s one of those people who interview you about your future and can sense when you’re bullshitting.
“Are you going to sit these”—she waves her hand in the air searching for the word—“scholarship exams next year, Debbie?”
“I don’t know,” I say, trying not to blush. The way that she’s looking at me, it’s like she can tell I got a 2.2 in that essay I wrote at the start of the year. “I’m not sure I’m smart enough, to be honest.”
“She is,” Xanthe says.
“You don’t know that,” I say. “Xanthe should go for it, though.” I nod at her across the table. “She’d get Schols.”
“I know,” Jean agrees. “Still, it doesn’t guarantee you anything, does it? An English degree.”
“I suppose not. Sure we always have the dole,” I say. I have just become the type of person who laughs at my own jokes.
The waiter appears with a basket of bread and a plate of tiny, slick pink rolls filled with green stuff. “We have no olives, but the chef has prepared some amuse-bouche.”
“No olives?” Jean looks baffled.
The waiter’s jaw clenches and he directs his words to the legs of the table. “I’m afraid not, but these are avocado and salmon bites with lemon and deep-fried quinoa.”
“Do we have to pay for these?” Jean asks.
“No.”
“OK.”
* * *
Dinner continues to be a painful affair. Jean sends back her main course. The waiter offers her another dish on the house but she refuses. The chocolate soufflé dessert is complimentary. I thank the waiter profusely, which seems to annoy him even more.
I don’t learn much about Jean other than she thinks duck confit can be overdone even when it’s still bleeding. Xanthe appears unfazed by her mother’s antics. When Jean gets up to pay the bill I sneak a twenty-euro note under a tea saucer. Xanthe gives me a funny sideways smile and says, “Do you want to come back to mine?”
* * *
Jean appears uncomfortable outside the restaurant. She asks Xanthe if she’s OK for money. Xanthe nods.
“I’ll leave you to it so. Let me know if you need anything. Nice to meet you, Debbie.”
“You too, Jean.”
We watch her turn and walk away, her stilettos clacking against the pavement.
Xanthe asks, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you make of her?”
“She’s some woman is Jean.”
Xanthe laughs. “I love my mother, but . . . I find it difficult to like her.”
“I can tell.”
* * *
We walk back to Xanthe’s apartment in silence. I’m in a bit of a daze. I’m glad when we get there, relieved at the thought of sitting down. She opens a bottle of red wine and takes two glasses out of the press.
“Just water for me,” I say. “I’m trying to take it easy.”
I’m waiting for her to raise her eyebrows or say something but she doesn’t. I take the glass of water and curl up on the leather sofa, pulling her patchwork blanket over my knees.
“I just don’t understand how you . . . came out of her?” I finally say. “Are you adopted?”
“I think we’re very alike, actually.”
“No you’re not.”
“We are.” Xanthe takes a seat beside me and the sofa sighs under the weight of both of us. “I’m just more of a people-pleaser. That’s something I admire in Mum actually. She doesn’t feel the need to endear people to her. It’s a rare quality in a woman.”
“But she actively pushes people away. That waiter was fit to kill her. You’re not like that. People love you.”
“Do they though?” Xanthe looks into her wine glass and swirls it around. “Or do they just like how I present myself? Mum came from a big family with very little money. When she decided to be a doctor at three years old”—she rolls her eyes—“she rejected her family and everything they represented. She was completely on her own.”
“An independent three-year-old,” I say.
“She wasn’t joking.”
“I can imagine her in her navy blue romper and matching specs.”
“Exactly.” Xanthe takes a sip of wine and scrunches her nose. “This wine is rank.”
“Is it corked? Will we ask Jean to send it back?”
Xanthe doesn’t laugh.
“Sorry,” I say. “I feel bad, slagging your mother off.”
“Mum just . . .” She repositions herself on the sofa and tries again. “Mum’s a perfectionist. We both are. It doesn’t make me better than anyone. It paralyzes me. It limits everything I do.”
“It kind of does make you better though,” I argue. “You’re the only one in our year who got a first.”
“I only got that first because I bullied myself into going to the library every day. I wrote six different drafts of the same essay. You want to know how to get a first? Give out to yourself. Constantly. Be disappointed in everything you write. Tell yourself you’re worth nothing if you don’t get over seventy percent. I actually like hating myself. It’s my comfort zone.”
“Do you imagine the rest of us go around loving ourselves?”
“That’s why I’m so obsessed with your family. You’re all so—”
“Fucked up?” I offer.
“Yeah. And beautiful.”
I hold out my hand and she looks at it.
“Shake it,” I say.
She takes my hand.
“That’s a good handshake,” I compliment her.
“Almost perfect.”
“Welcome to the club,” I say.
The Yellow Bookshop
It’s the first week of Hilary term. Xanthe and I have spent the last ten minutes standing outside the sunny, yellow exterior of a bookshop. We peer through the window display past our own reflections to see if he’s working today.
“We can’t go in now. We’ve stood outside for too long. It’s too weird.”
“Of course we can,” Xanthe says. “Now, what are you going to do when we get in there?”
“Em, browse?”
“And?”
“Maybe buy something?”
“You can’t buy anything. That’s cheating.”
“I’ll still talk to him.”
“But then it won’t be a conversation. It’ll be a transaction.”
“Can I just point out the irony of you telling me not to buy anything?”
* * *
We’ve visited the yellow bookshop regularly since I moved into the apartment with Xanthe. She won’t let me pay rent, which Billy says suits him down to the ground. We’ve been scouring charity shops to do the place up. We got a vinyl record player and we’re compiling a pretentious collection of classical music and jazz. We’re also building up our collection of secondhand books.
The yellow bookshop is only a fifteen-minute walk from our apartment. It’s like being in someone’s sitting room. There’s a rug and a rocking chair with a blanket. They take good care of their plants. I fancy one of the guys who works there—the Italian in my Theories of Literature class.
* * *
The bell above the door tinkles. He looks up from his seat behind the counter, grins at us, and continues to read his book. Xanthe heads over to the Classics corner. I run a finger along the book spines. Browsing in a bookshop is a lot like collect
ing shells on a beach on a really good day. I want all of them.
I have a hard time distinguishing between the books I’ve bought and the books that I’ve read. Xanthe says that she’s the same. We don’t want shelves full of books we haven’t read, so we have agreed to make a “To Be Read” list. We’re not allowed to buy a new book if we haven’t got time to read it. It’s an attempt at self-improvement.
“Am I allowed to buy this?” Xanthe asks, holding up a copy of Infinite Jest.
“Are you joking?”
“Sorry, Mam.”
She’s waiting for me to strike up a conversation with the guy. I continue to browse, ignoring her.
Xanthe gasps. “Oh my God! Debbie!”
I turn around. She’s on her knees pulling a tome out of the Classics section. She turns the cover around.
“Oh my God!” I kneel down next to her.
Lorelai and Rory smile up at us from The Gilmore Girls Companion.
“The holy grail.”
“The ideal coffee table book.”
“We don’t have a coffee table.”
Xanthe is flicking through it, handling the pages like it’s a copy of Planet Earth. “There’s a whole section on Emily!”
“Emily?” The guy has stopped reading his book and is looking at us like we just offended his mother. “Emily is the absolute worst. I mean, all of the characters are morally dubious, apart from Lane. Lane is the best.”
“Team Dean or Team Jess?” Xanthe asks.
He considers this. “Team Leave Luke Alone.”
Xanthe nods. “I respect that.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, double-bagging the book for us at the counter. “I didn’t want to watch all of Gilmore Girls. I was supposed to be writing an essay on Ulysses and boom—it just happened.”
“I can sympathize,” I say.
“You’re in one of my tutorials,” he says to me.
“Oh yeah! Theories of Lit?” I answer, pretending to recognize him for the first time.
“Yes. I can place you now. Debbie, isn’t it? You’re the funny one.”
There’s an awkward silence while I process whether that is an insult or a compliment.
“We should have a Gilmore Girls trivia night,” Xanthe says.
“Sounds good,” he says.
“Nice to meet you . . .”
“I’m Nic,” he says. “Lovely to meet you too. See you around.”
* * *
“It’s more than likely that he fancies you,” I say on the way home.
Xanthe stops walking and crosses her arms. “Look at me. You have to stop doing this, to me and to yourself.”
“I’m just telling the truth.”
“No, you’re not. You’re beating yourself up. And even worse, you’re imagining me as something that I’m not.”
“You are though.”
“Debbie, the only compliment I want to hear is that I’m an OK human. Do you think I’m an OK human?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Do you think you’re an OK human?”
“Em.”
“Look in the reflection of that window and tell yourself that you’re an OK human.”
I look at my reflection.
“Say it,” Xanthe pleads.
I look at the girl in the window. There’s an easy expression on her face. She’s not frowning. Usually, my face is all scrunched with worry, but I’ve done my makeup nice today. I had a good sleep last night. The dreams are still there, I’m just able to let them come and go. Xanthe bought me a bag of Guatemalan worry dolls that I keep under my pillow. Mam gave me a framed quote to put in my new bedroom, to remind me that we all live in each other’s shadows.
* * *
Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine
* * *
I’m dressed in someone else’s clothes that I found in a charity shop last week. I find it comforting to wear clothes that already have a history of their own. “I’m really happy,” I say to the girl in the window. “I’m really fucking happy.”
Silver Island
Mam won a poetry competition. We spotted it in the local paper a few weeks back and I told her to apply. The prize was only twenty euro, but Audrey suggested that she should do something to celebrate. Mam wanted us all to go to the island together. I asked if I could bring Xanthe. Then Mam suggested we ask Audrey to come.
Billy was skeptical of the whole arrangement.
“That poor woman has enough of us,” he said.
“Ah Billy, sure we’re only asking her as a way of saying thank you.”
“I think, as a way of saying thank you, we should leave her alone.”
“Well, I’ve already asked her and she’s said yes.”
“Fucking wonderful.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
* * *
Mam and Billy used to go to the island as kids. There’s a thatched cottage out there that has been in the family for generations. Our ancestors hailed from there. We can trace them back to the 1920s—James and Bridget O’Donnell headed the top of my family tree in primary school. I remember getting a gold star for how much effort I put into doing it. Mam did it with me. She was always really into our roots and where we came from.
She tells me that she brought me to the island as a child, but I can’t remember it. I can’t remember the last time we went on a holiday. Billy isn’t usually able to get away from the farm, but Mark and Dooley said that they would cover the milking and look after the place until we got back.
Mam has been meticulous in her planning of the trip. She wrote to her second cousin Judy to ask her where the key to the holiday cottage is hidden. Judy occasionally writes letters to Mam on a typewriter and encloses a tarot card in every wax-sealed envelope. She wrote back to Mam straightaway and told her that the key was kept in the decapitated Buddha in the garden.
* * *
Audrey arrives to the house fully kitted out in hiking gear. I’m waiting for Billy to slag her but he doesn’t. He waits until Xanthe comes to look around him during an awkward pause in conversation and says, “Blessed is he among women.”
It’s a four-hour drive. Billy offered to share the driving but I want to prove to myself that I can get Violet there in one piece. Billy sits beside me in the passenger seat and Mam, Xanthe, and Audrey are squished into the back.
“What am I putting into Google Maps?” I ask.
“Money Island,” Mam says.
“Cha-ching! Is that the name of it?”
“Yeah. It comes from a bad translation of the Irish. It used to be called Inis Airgead. Silver Island. But airgead also translates as money so, Money Island it is.”
“Nice bit of trivia there. Thank you, Maeve,” Billy says.
“I’m going to call it Silver Island,” I say.
As I pull off, Billy orders Xanthe to start the sing-song. She obliges with a rendition of American Pie. As Violet crawls up Clock’s Hill, I watch the village disappear in my rearview mirror. Billy leans back in his chair and whispers, “What a song.”
* * *
We get to Tipperary before we realize that Google Maps has taken us the wrong way. Mam wants to stop in the shop for supplies and the rest of us just want to get there.
“There’s no shop on the island,” she insists.
“Mam, last time you visited the island was during the Stone Age. I’m sure that it has come on a long way.”
“Well I don’t think we should go if we’re not prepared. You can let me out here and I’ll walk home.”
“From Tipperary? It’s a long way to go.”
“I’ll get the bus. Or hitchhike.”
“People don’t do that anymore, Mam, it’s dangerous.”
“God help the poor fucker who stops to pick you off the side of the road,” Billy mumbles. “Get more than they bargained for.”
“I actually think Maeve has a point,” Audrey says. “It would be nice to arrive prepared.”
A silence falls over th
e car while the rest of us process Audrey siding with Mam.
“There’s a SuperValu on the way,” Billy says. “We can stop there.”
* * *
It has taken us eight hours to get to the island. It’s pitch-black and raining. The wind rattles Violet and I squeeze the steering wheel to try and calm her down.
“Do we have to get a boat out to the island?” Xanthe asks in a small voice.
“No, there’s a bridge connecting it to the mainland.”
“Thank Christ,” Billy says.
The headlights shine on the treasure trail of grass in the middle of the bohereen. We give a tentative cheer when we cross a bridge. We’re still not sure we’re going the right way, but Mam is adamant that this is the place. It’s only when I navigate Violet around a hairpin bend that Billy confirms the house is at the top of this hill.
“I told you,” Mam says. “I fucking told you. No one ever believes me.”
* * *
It’s so dark by the time we arrive at the house that it takes us a while to locate the keys. We’re out in the lashings of rain, shining the torches on our phones into the wet black abyss.
“How big is the Buddha?” Billy asks.
“She didn’t say,” Mam says.
“How are we supposed to know that it’s a Buddha if it doesn’t have a head?”
“By its man boobs?” I suggest.
“Why couldn’t she have left it under a flowerpot?” Billy roars.
“Too obvious.”
“Whereas a headless Buddha in the garden is not suspicious at all.”
Audrey is the last person to get out of the car for a look. She hasn’t been feeling well all journey so we insisted that she stay put. As soon as she steps outside the car she says, “I have it!”
The Buddha was around the side of the house, next to a bag of firewood.
“Audrey, you’re a legend,” I say.
She gives the key to Mam, who puts it in the door. It takes a few attempts to turn the lock the right way. It’s a glossy yellow door that opens in two parts like in a fairy tale. Mam opens the top part and is able to open the bottom from the inside.
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