Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  Emer McLysaght

  and

  Sarah Breen

  * * *

  ONCE, TWICE, THREE TIMES AN AISLING

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Acknowledgements

  About the Authors

  Emer McLysaght

  Emer McLysaght is the former editor of The Daily Edge and has worked extensively in journalism and radio.

  Sarah Breen

  Sarah Breen is a journalist whose work has appeared in Stellar, Image, U, the Irish Independent and The Gloss.

  To Ciara and Gav, the soundest of sounding boards. Doireann is one lucky gal.

  Prologue

  I was checking for moths in the back of my wardrobe when I found it: my teenage diary. Well, one of many. There are three boxes of them under my bed, and another few in the attic too, but this one must have escaped my rigorous filing system. Mammy used to be at me to bin them, and now it’s to recycle them, but you never know when you might need a trip down memory lane.

  Ever since Majella got engaged we can’t stop reminiscing about our old school days. You’d think she was dying, not getting ready to tie the knot. Of course, she was over like a hot snot when I told her I’d found the rogue diary, mad for a bit of nostalgia and a chance to reminisce on how skinny we were.

  The year on the cover is 2005 but I could have already guessed that due to the sheer volume of Westlife pictures sellotaped all over it. I was sixteen. Transition year. The height of my Shane obsession.

  ‘That reminds me, I did my Junior Cert art project on the evolution of Nicky’s hair,’ Maj says, lying back on my single bed. ‘Got a B too. I must dig it out and show Pablo. He’s become a bit of a fan.’

  Majella sailed through school, somehow managing to be friends with students and teachers alike, while also being a bit of a rip. I don’t know how she got away with it. She didn’t go to a single PE class, and the one time she convinced me to mitch, I got so nervous my stomach went funny and I spent the entire forty minutes in the girls’ cloakroom – I might as well have been in the sports hall doing the bleep test. To this day I still have to make sure I’m near a toilet if I’m stressed. It seems like a lifetime ago, but at the same time, not much has really changed. Even Westlife are back at it.

  I can faintly hear Mammy downstairs shouting at Live-line as I flick open a random page – 19 February. ‘Aisling woz ere’ is scrawled around thirty times and I remember I was experimenting with the tail on my g that year. Straight? Curly? It looks like I was undecided. I still think the hearts above the i’s are quite funky.

  ‘You always did have lovely handwriting, Ais,’ Maj says approvingly.

  Practice makes perfect and God knows I was trying to be perfect. I flick again.

  ‘Ooh, what’s this?’ I say with a smile. ‘March 23rd. Majella Moran is NOT MY FRIEND. Majella Moran BETRAYED ME. Majella Moran BETTER WATCH HER BACK.’ The words are scrawled in block capitals. I rack my brains trying to remember what I was on about. ‘Was that the time you told Baby Chief Gittons my 32AA bra was “absolutely swimming” on me?’ I ask.

  Majella looks pensive. ‘Can’t remember, bird. That doesn’t sound like something I’d do?’

  ‘Oh, you did. But it was only because I decided Sinéad McGrath was going to be my best friend and I gave you back that friendship bracelet you got me in Tramore.’

  ‘You wagon!’ She swats me with a rolled-up copy of Wedding Belles magazine. I saw ‘Always the Bridesmaid?’ on the cover and couldn’t leave it behind me in the newsagent’s in Dublin last week. The woman at the till had asked was I the bride or the bridesmaid and I told her and we ended up talking for fifteen minutes about the best way to transport The Dress. Helping to transport The Dress is one of a bridesmaid’s most important duties and the woman in the shop – Helen was her name; we nearly swapped numbers – told me she once booked an extra seat on a flight to Palma for The Dress. Needs must and all that. There was quite a queue behind me at that stage and I definitely heard a few tuts so I had to take my magazine and let people pay for their chicken fillet rolls. As I was walking out, the woman called after me, ‘You sound like a great friend, Aisling. I hope all brides have an Aisling in their lives,’ and I was pure delighted until she roared, ‘And your time will come too,’ as I skirted the postcard stand on the way out the door.

  I turn the page in the diary again and we’re greeted with what looks like an essay. The heading across the top, underlined several times, reads ‘30 Things I Must Do Before I’m 30’. Oh Jesus, I remember this. I was trying to pluck up the courage to buy a packet of pads in the chemist in Knock when I overheard Kelly Kennedy and Linda Dalton from sixth year reading out an article from Cosmopolitan about goals to achieve before that particular milestone. I was afraid to even look at Cosmo on the shelf in Filan’s newsagents in case I accidentally picked up a sex tip.

  ‘“Have savings.” Maybe if I stopped spending all my babysitting money in Topshop.’ Kelly had laughed, leaning on the counter while Linda took bottles of Sun-In out of a box. The whole school had gone bonkers for the stuff and I was nearly tempted myself until Deirdre Ruane turned her fringe bright orange. I dropped the pads and skulked out. When I got home, I decided to do up my own list. Right in this very room, actually.

  Majella takes the diary out of my hand and scans the page. ‘You’re not doing too badly at all here, Ais.’

  ‘Really? Read me out a few there.’

  ‘Okay. “Number one: buy something in Topshop.”’

  ‘Check! It was a pair of sunglasses. Fifty per cent off because I got them on the eighth of December.’

  ‘“Number two: go on an amazing road trip with your bestie.” We’ve definitely done that.’

  ‘We were only in Kildare Village last week. So, yeah, check.’

  ‘“Number three: read Moby Dick.”’

  ‘I have it. I’ve started it.’

  ‘“Number four: buy my own car.”’

  ‘Well, I went in with Daddy on it.’

  ‘“Number five: do the Women’s Mini Marathon.”’

  ‘Check. And I have a number of T-shirts to prove it.’

  ‘“Number six: shift Prince William.”’

  Maj grimaces a little and we look at each other and say in unison, nodding, ‘Prince Harry instead.’

  ‘His manners are just as good, I’m sure, a
nd he’d treat you like a queen,’ Majella says confidentially. ‘No less than you deserve.’

  She runs her finger down the page. ‘Not too shabby at all, Ais. Assuming you’re going to finish Moby Dick, given that Harry and William are taken and since you can no longer meet Pope John Paul, you’re twenty-seven out of thirty. I’d be happy with that. Very happy.’

  ‘What’s the last one then?’

  Majella takes a deep breath. ‘“Number thirty: get married. Preferably to Shane Filan.”’

  I paste on a smile. ‘You never know. There’s still a couple of months to my birthday.’

  1

  Even though I’ve pressed myself up against the window I can’t get more than one bar of signal. Two if I stick the phone outside, but that’s no good because then she can’t see me.

  ‘Ais, what am I looking at here? Are you wearing … a jersey? All I can see is fields. Hold still!’

  The reception is shite. I could blame it on Sadhbh being in Tokyo but I know the problem is more than likely on my end. The Japanese are notoriously technological. Meanwhile, the 3G goes entirely if there’s so much as a stiff breeze in Ballygobbard. You can only get 4G in two spots in the village and one of them is in the local postman’s front garden. Pat Curran is forever running people who’ve hopped the wall to download a podcast. I must admit I did once tip over the wall myself. Colette Green, Ireland’s foremost fashion and beauty blogger, had just posted about her new line of fake tan on Instagram, and while I’ve never been a slave to the tan myself, I am a slave to Colette, particularly since she made the trek down to Ballygobbard during the summer and put my humble little café, BallyGoBrunch, on the map. Her Insta might be all hashtag vegan but she definitely horsed into at least three of our award-winning sausages. We had an influx of what Majella would call ‘Insta huns’ for weeks afterwards and, to be honest, the café has been buzzing ever since – I’m dead on my feet every evening. Running the place is harder than I ever imagined.

  The broadband is so bad it’s reminiscent of the dial-up we got installed in 1999 after Daddy saw a programme about new technology making it possible to watch your cows calving online. Mammy still goes pale when she thinks about the waste of money and the fact that it took four days for a full picture to load and by that time the calf would nearly be talking to you. It did nothing for Ballygobbard’s local reputation as ‘BallyGoBackwards’ and is probably why we were always more keen on just calling it ‘BGB’.

  ‘Obviously I’m wearing my county jersey!’ I exclaim. ‘It’s homecoming day!’ I manoeuvre the phone down to my chest so Sadhbh can see my sporty attire; the jersey of my home county hurling team. One of my favourite things to tell non-Irish people is how a New Zealand paper covering one of our most beloved Gaelic sports once called hurling ‘hockey mixed with murder’.

  I move my phone left to right so Sadhbh can see it properly. She squeals and hoots.

  Honestly, for a girl whose wardrobe palette rarely hovers above pale grey and brown or what she calls ‘pebble’ and ‘ecru dune’ and who can’t bear to be in the same room as milk not squeezed from nuts, Sadhbh can be such a Majella sometimes.

  ‘Homecoming day, of course!’ I can just about make out enough of Sadhbh to see her slapping her forehead. ‘I’m all over the place. We just flew in this morning and I don’t know if I’m coming or going. The lads were fuming they couldn’t find a telly in Tokyo showing the match. Tell me all.’

  Sadhbh’s Gaelic Games etiquette wouldn’t be up to much but I appreciate her enthusiasm.

  ‘So, there’s a big parade this evening and a street party –’

  ‘Okay, but let me just double check,’ Sadhbh interrupts, ‘the county didn’t win the All-Ireland final?’

  ‘No,’ I say happily. ‘They were absolutely slaughtered. But sure that hardly matters.’ I can’t help beaming proudly. ‘We had four BGB Rovers and two Knocknamanagh Rangers players represented on the pitch. We’ll hardly see the likes of it again. The All-Ireland final, like! The county team hasn’t been in an All-Ireland final since 1954!’ Knocknamanagh is a few miles from Ballygobbard and usually our biggest rival. But to have both towns represented on the same team in the final meant all grudges were temporarily on hold.

  ‘Was it brilliant?’

  I pause for a second to think back over the previous day. Somehow, my little village café had ended up sponsoring the team jerseys. Mulcahy Feeds had been the sponsor for years but pulled out a few months back when Johnnie Mulcahy’s son didn’t get picked for the squad. John, my ex-boyfriend and newly appointed county-team selector, had pleaded for my help and I agreed to put a bit of money behind them in exchange for having the BallyGoBrunch name emblazoned across the jerseys for this year’s championship.

  ‘It was brilliant,’ I tell Sadhbh, nearly setting myself off again. Myself and Majella had nearly had to be hospitalised for dehydration in the swish corporate box specially reserved for sponsors in Croke Park the previous day. Our emotions got the better of us several times between the BallyGoBrunch jerseys being beamed into every telly in Ireland and the fancy prawn sandwiches and seemingly never-ending glasses of Prosecco. I’m nearly sure I saw Chris de Burgh! I don’t know what state we’d be in if the county had actually won. Of course, I had half of Ballygobbard onto me looking for a dig out with a ticket. Mad Tom Doyle offered to do a bit of landscaping around the café in exchange for one but he was brandishing a strimmer at me at the time which had Eamon Filan’s name spray-painted on the side of it so he’d clearly stolen it. He got a ticket somehow anyway because he was on the big screen in Croke Park multiple times before throw-in, helicoptering his top over his head. Loves an auld day out, so he does.

  Seeing John down on the pitch with the team was strange. I wanted to text him from the box, but it might have been a bit much. We’re officially ‘friends’ since we broke up earlier in the year, but every time I see him I feel as awkward as ever. Majella says it’s nearly impossible to be friends with your ex, but with me living in BGB and John back home from Dublin every weekend and with about forty-seven mutual friends, we just have to suck it up. Give it a year and we’ll be flying, I’ve no doubt. I caught sight of Megan, the girlfriend, in the stands behind him yesterday. I mean, no human alive is that particular shade of biscuit-fragranced orange, even with all the holidays primary teachers get, but she is very pretty and John seems very happy with her. I’m happy for them.

  ‘The whole team is having lunch up in Dublin at Croke Park and then stopping off at two hospitals on the way home,’ I explain to Sadhbh, dragging the brush through my hair. ‘There are rumours that Dessie Connolly from Knocknamanagh has the healing touch after he saved that final goal.’ It was a pity he hadn’t saved the four goals he let in before that one, but sure, look, isn’t it the taking part that counts?

  ‘Okay, and is the whole team coming to BGB then?’

  I’ve the phone held straight in the air in the eleven o’clock position and finally I can see Sadhbh more clearly on the screen. She’s leaning back in a huge chair with a cocktail in her hand and I’m fairly sure there’s an indoor waterfall behind her. This is her life now, since The Peigs started their stadium tour around Asia. She’s moved – ‘pivoted’ was the word she used, I think – from HR to handling all the social media for the band, but it’s all done from her phone so she spends a good portion of her time hanging around five-star hotels listening to audiobooks while Don Shields, her boyfriend and the band’s ridey frontman, does interviews and gets ready for the night’s concert. Well for some! She loves all the travel but her artsy Instagram tends to baffle me with its photos of a bit of a building or a blurry tree or an old man she doesn’t even know with no caption. Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned ‘hot dogs or legs’ or ‘today’s office’ update? Classics.

  ‘The six Ballygobbard and Knock lads are having their own smaller homecoming on BGB Main Street,’ I explain as I dig around in my jewellery box for something a bit dressy. ‘Open-top lorry, speeches, th
e whole shebang.’

  ‘But just to reiterate,’ she’s laughing now, ‘they didn’t actually win?’

  ‘No. Annihilated, so they were. A shocking defeat. A complete –’

  ‘Okay, okay. I get it.’ She nearly spills the cocktail, laughing. ‘It’s a big deal.’

  ‘How are you getting on anyway?’ I ask her, untangling two necklaces. I can’t believe I know someone who’s jetting around the world with a famous band. Up until recently the only fame I’d known was BGB’s own Leslie Cahill falling off his chair on Winning Streak.

  ‘I’m great. It’s so nice to be able to travel with Don and we all have such a laugh together. The record company really looks after us, which makes everything chill. It’s so funny the people who are crawling out of the woodwork, though. People I haven’t seen in years are suddenly sending me Facebook messages in case I can get them tickets for something. One girl I barely knew in school asked if The Peigs could play at her sister’s fortieth. The neck of her!’

  The idea of The Peigs squashed into the corner of a function room while drunk aunties slosh their Bulmers on them is too much to bear. They’ve been on the Late Late twice!

  I hold up a pair of earrings beside my face and point my phone at them. ‘Are they too much?’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Sadhbh takes her time analysing the earrings as best she can, biting her lower lip. She takes fashion very seriously, even if it’s only accessories. Me and Sadhbh are like chalk and cheese, and I will never expect her to be at one with the GAA culture that flows through the veins of every BGB-ite, but ever since we became roommates in a swanky Dublin apartment last year we’ve been the best of friends, no matter how many times she’s tried to get me to buy a ‘neutral poncho’.

  ‘They’re very … dangly,’ she decides eventually. ‘Have you got something smaller? Maybe a delicate hoop?’

  I do another quick search through my jewellery box: I’ve a few nice Newbridge Silverware pieces, a gold cross on a chain I got for my Confirmation and some bits from Penneys, as well as the two identical Pandora bracelets I’ve stashed in a little velvet pouch. No hoops though.