Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  ‘Did you hear? They’re going to be doing big events out at Garbally Stud when it’s refurbished. Denise Kelly told me. I wonder what Constance will make of her old place being gussed up like that?’ Carol is packing the sausage rolls into catering trays as fast as I’m cutting them. The local breastfeeding group was in earlier and, while he’d never admit it, Father Fenlon definitely abandoned his cappuccino mid-sip when they started fiddling with their tops. He was looking at my forehead when he was paying and I was fully clothed. Denise Kelly was with the group with baby Cumhall and she told Carol that her husband Liam heard that the work on Garbally was out to tender. Liam works in the county council planning office and has ears everywhere. I must tell Mammy. Might be good news for the yurts.

  ‘That’s mad. I suppose, it’s a lovely big house and there’s loads of land for marquees or whatever. Why wouldn’t you just go to the Ard Rí, though?’

  ‘Some people have fierce ideas about themselves.’

  She’s not wrong. I was at a wedding of one of John’s workmates two years ago and they had the ceremony outside. ‘Under the gaze of the watchful trees’ is what I believe it said on the invitation. It was March and of course it pissed rain and everyone was frozen, and then when they eventually let us into the specially erected tent we had to sit on the ground. ‘Help us to honour our engagement trip to India as we dine traditionally and meaningfully.’ Listen, they might sit on the ground in India, but when you’re wearing your good Karen Millen and pair of nude heels there’d better be someone on hand to reef you up when you need to go to the toilet. I said at the time I didn’t think the marriage would last because they were fighting before the starters were finished. Something about her mother falling backwards into a bowl of mango chutney. There but for the grace of God went I, to be honest.

  ‘Your mother will be pleased. It might mean more business for them.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking. Unless the Garbally crowd have their own yurts. I must get on to her to get the dry runs set up and the website running for bookings. It’ll be spring before we know it.’

  ‘Look, Aisling, it’s half-past. You said to tell you when it was half-past.’

  ‘Oh, good woman, Carol.’

  I want to try to catch Sadhbh on the phone before she goes out for the night beyond in Seoul or Singapore or wherever she is now. We keep missing each other and the last I heard Colette Green was going to be meeting up with them on her way back from a trip to Melbourne to promote her jeans range. I was straight on to Paul to tell him to tell Hannah but he said he’d already bought tickets for the pair of them. The idea of Paul at an event to sell skinny jeans is daft to me but, sure, that’s what love does to you, I suppose.

  I go into my back office to try her but Sadhbh’s FaceTime rings out, and I’m disappointed but realise I’m also just a tiny bit relieved. I really have to ask her about Don and The Peigs playing Majella’s wedding but I just can’t bring myself to do it. What if it puts her in an awkward position and she gets thick with me and then Majella gets thick with me? I’ll leave it a while longer. Maybe feel her out a bit on it.

  ‘No answer,’ I sigh to Carol, mentally reminding myself of the rest of my jobs for the day: drop the takings in the nightsafe at the bank; try to get a handle on the separate WhatsApp group Pablo’s female relatives have set up and included me in, despite it mostly being in Spanish and me not having much beyond ‘Is it very spicy?’ in my vocabulary; order new cushions for the BallyGoBrunch window seats. The list is endless. At least it’s taking my mind off my birthday, though. My emphatic pleas for no fuss mean just that – there’s no fuss. Maybe I should have organised a bit of fuss. As it is, I just have plans with Mammy to sit in and watch Titanic. My mother’s loyalty to Saoirse Ronan is matched only by her loyalty to Kate Winslet, and it doesn’t get much better than Titanic. I must remember to get up and put on the kettle when the filth in the car is going on. I can’t be in the same room as Mammy when the sweaty hand makes an appearance.

  I can’t believe I’m thirty tomorrow. I think back to teenage Aisling who made that list in her diary. She really thought I’d be so grown up. I suppose, when you’re that age thirty seems like old-lady territory. And now here I am. I get up out of my chair, trying to ignore the ever-encroaching mess of the office. I walk out to the counter. We’ll be closing soon and there’s just one couple in the corner enjoying their coffees and scones. It’s not a bad little place. It is little, though. Despite all I’ve achieved here, it feels small as I turn thirty. Something is missing. I know if I was to say this to Sadhbh she’d hop off me and say I have all the time in the world to get the other things I want; to meet the person I want to share my life with. But how can I do it in BGB? My mind drifts to James. Was I mad to let him go so easily? Maybe I should ring him. He hinted a few times about maybe doing visits and whatnot. Maybe.

  ‘Aisling,’ Carol calls from the kitchen, pulling my out of my funk, ‘These sausage rolls are ready.’

  I drive out to Knock to drop the tray of sausage rolls off at a wake. I don’t even know who died, and usually you’d hear that kind of thing around here before the last breath was gone out of the poor divil. Carol took the order, though, and I’m just doing the delivering. The poor man who answered the door was very upset. I get back into the car just as my phone rings. It’s Majella.

  ‘The wedding is off, Aisling. There’s no way I can wear that … that … rag down the aisle! Promise me you’ll take away Pablo’s belt and shoelaces when you tell him. He won’t take it well.’

  The wedding dress from China must have arrived and, from what I can gather between her wails, it looks nothing like it’s supposed to. There’s actually much more to a bridesmaid’s role than just buying willy straws for the hen and guarding the helpless bride on the Big Day. The drama is non-stop.

  ‘I’m sure it’s lovely, Maj. You might just need to get it taken in or something?’

  ‘It’s not even white! It’s mint green! And the bit where my boobs are supposed to go is hanging around my stomach.’

  I’m about to say green probably would be a more appropriate colour for Majella to wear on her wedding day than white but I keep quiet. ‘Green has always suited you,’ I reply encouragingly. ‘And Pablo could wear a matching tie. It’d really set off his tan.’ Majella loves boasting about how brown Pablo goes in the sun. It’s one of her claims to fame.

  ‘You have to help me, Ais. I’m freaking out here. I knew it was too good to be true but the model in the picture looked so ridey and I just wanted to be a ridey bride too.’ She’s wailing again now.

  ‘What can I do?’ I say. I resist reminding her that the wedding is still months away, although I know that dresses can take a long time to get right. It’s obviously not what she needs to hear right now.

  ‘Can I try it on for you with the shoes and the veil?’

  ‘Did you go for the veil in the end?’

  ‘No, but Mammy found my communion one in the attic. I was thinking it might draw the eye up? It’s worth a try.’

  Jesusmaryandjoseph. ‘Don’t make any decisions till I get there.’

  ‘No! You can’t come over,’ she shouts down the phone.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Pablo. He can’t see me in this yoke, just in case I do end up wearing it. Not that I will. Because I’m freaking out.’

  ‘I can come when he’s at work tomorrow then?’

  ‘I won’t last the night, bird. I’m going out of my mind with the stress here.’

  ‘Do you want to bring it over to our house now so?’

  ‘Perfect. Daddy says he’ll drop me in now on the way to Maguire’s.’

  ‘I’ll be home in fifteen. Stick the kettle on.’

  Majella is sitting at the table looking tense when I come flying in the door having driven eight kilometres over the speed limit the entire way. I don’t say this often, but thank God the garda station in BGB closed down. Penalty points are my number one fear. Well, after killing someone on tha
t lethal bend outside Knock.

  ‘It’ll be grand,’ I say confidently, kicking off my shoes. ‘Murt Kelly’s wife Eileen is a whizz with a sewing machine if the worst comes to the worst.’

  Majella smiles a watery smile. ‘You just missed your mam – she had to drop something over to Constance. She told me to tell you to feed the alpacas as soon as you got home.’

  ‘Really? I’ve never fed them before. I’m half-afraid of them.’ Despite Mammy’s decades of farm experience, it’s Constance’s years at the stud that have really kept the alpacas going since they arrived at the eco farm a few weeks ago. I haven’t gone near them and I don’t think Mammy is a fan of them either.

  ‘You have to show them who’s boss, you see, Aisling!’ Constance brayed at me the other day from under her signature Camilla Parker Bowles hat, without breaking her stride as she brought the small herd in from the field. Murt Kelly, who keeps a few himself, was giving her a hand and she was honking away at him. ‘Here you are now, Muuursh,’ she’d brayed, holding a pair of reins out. He was kind of bowing at her, she’s that posh.

  Majella stands up and heads for the back door. ‘Come on, I’m dying to see them. Cute bastards.’

  I suppose they are an attractive creature, but up until they arrived on our farm my only experience with them was Niamh from Across the Road cornering me in the pub once to tell me about some time she had spent in Peru. She showed me forty-seven selfies of her with an alpaca and asked me who had the longer eyelashes. I had to lie and say hers were bigger to get out of there.

  ‘Hang on, Maj – where’s the dress after all that fuss?’ I go, a bit confused.

  Majella freezes. ‘In my handbag.’

  I look at the Orla Kiely on the floor beside her chair. You could barely fit a wallet in it, let alone a wedding dress with a nine-foot train. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ she says shortly. ‘Alpacas first, then dress. ’Mon.’

  And with that she’s out the back door like a rabbit out of a trap. I stick my feet into Mammy’s wellies and catch up with her in the yard. We walk up past the chicken coops and beehives and around the insect hotel and polytunnel towards the fancy new sheds, with Majella striding ahead babbling about alpacas and dresses and the merits of compostable coffee cups. I have to jog to keep up with her. The alpacas are very cute, to be fair, and I’m thinking it’s good that they’ve taken her mind off the dress disappointment for a while.

  We’re just at the gate when she stops and drops suddenly down on one knee. ‘My lace is open,’ she calls to me over her shoulder. ‘You go on into the alpaca shed. Grab me a baby one so I can give it a bottle.’

  Confused, I catch hold of the bolt on the shed door and heave it to the right, thinking I don’t actually even know what alpacas eat, when suddenly the lights flick on, temporarily blinding me, and about forty people jump out from behind hay bales screaming ‘SURPRISE!’

  11

  It takes me about thirty seconds to figure out exactly what’s going on, and the whole time I’m panicking about the alpacas. Surely the noise will kill them stone dead? But I look around and there are no alpacas, only people smiling and my name spelled out in helium balloons and streamers and banners and basically all the party tat China has to offer. ‘Celebration’ by Kool & the Gang is pumping out of the sound system.

  Faces swim in front of me – Baby Chief Gittons still in his county jersey, I can only imagine the stench; Sharon; Miss Maloney, my senior infants teacher – while Majella presses a glass of Prosecco into each of my sweaty palms.

  ‘Feliz cumpleaños to you, Aisling!’ It’s Pablo. He’s wearing his good party sombrero. I’m stunned. Like, really stunned.

  ‘Did you really think we’d let your thirtieth go without marking the occasion?’ Maj hoots, grabbing me for a quick selfie. ‘You should have seen your face, bird.’

  ‘But what … where … the dress?’ I stammer.

  ‘I had to think of something that would make you come running,’ she says with a shrug. ‘I know you take your bridesmaid’s duties more seriously than quite possibly anything else.’ She’s not wrong.

  ‘So it’s not green then?’ I reply, draining the second glass of fizz while waving hello at Constance Swinford who’s striding around purposefully with Grainne Gleeson trotting at her heels, wearing an apron and taking notes.

  ‘Oh, it is. It’s desperate. Back to the drawing board. Sadhbh was just saying I could –’

  ‘Sadhbh is here? I thought she was in Singapore this week!’

  ‘I was lying! Happy birthday, bitch!’ She appears in front of me and kisses me on both cheeks. This is what three months of international travel has done – she used to be content with constant hugs. I’m so shocked to see her that I barely have time to process the fact that she’s wearing a boiler suit. But she is. She’s wearing a boiler suit to a party. Not that she doesn’t look deadly in it, as per usual, even with the preposterous fur-lined loafers on her feet, but still.

  ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe it. Sadhbhy! You’re back in BGB!’ And then my blood runs cold. I never asked her about The Peigs and now Majella is only twelve feet away. What am I going to do?

  ‘What are we, chopped liver?’ I swing around and there are Elaine and Ruby beaming back at me. ‘Welcome to your dirty thirties, Ais.’ Before I know it, the three of them have drawn me into a group hug and for a split second I screw my eyes shut and breathe in their expensive perfumes and imagine we’re back in our swanky Dublin penthouse, sitting around under blankets getting mouldy on Pinot Greej. When I broke up with John and moved to Dublin to become an independent woman like Beyoncé told me to, I never imagined I’d wind up with a whole new gang of best friends. God, we had some good times in that place, and wasn’t life so much simpler? No 5 a.m. starts or cash-and-carry runs or the pressure of paying wages and people’s livelihoods and rent depending on me back then. And I was never more than twenty minutes away from a Penneys. I can’t remember the last time I was in Penneys. I’m like a hostage to the café sometimes.

  ‘Lads, I can’t believe you’re all here,’ I say, feeling a bit teary. The Prosecco is obviously kicking in.

  ‘Did you really not suspect anything, pet?’ It’s Mammy, wearing the Going Out Gilet I got her last Christmas.

  I look down at my feet. ‘I would’ve put on my good wellies if I did.’

  It’s her turn to hug me then. I’ve become very partial to a good Mammy hug in the past year or so. ‘Happy birthday, my Aisling,’ she whispers in my ear. ‘I wish Daddy was here tonight. He’d get some craic out of all of this, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘He would,’ I sniff back at her.

  There’s now a swarm of people around me, slapping me on the back, passing me gift bags – very handy, I’ll use those again – and telling me I don’t look a day over twenty-nine. All the usual birthday craic. And even though I’m right there in the middle of it, smiling and nodding and wiping away the odd tear, it all feels so surreal, like I’m floating above it and looking down.

  I think about all the surprise parties I’ve been an accessory to over the years: Maeve Hennessy’s pimps-and-hos-themed twenty-first, Liz and Shem Moran’s silver wedding anniversary, Auntie Sheila’s sixtieth that was at her house and that she clearly knew about because she arrived wearing more sequins than Liza Minnelli. The convoluted plans and flimsy excuses to get people where they need to be at the right time. The hysteria when word comes through that the mark is on the way. I can’t believe that it was all going on around me today and I never copped.

  ‘How was the wake?’ Carol Boland calls across the crowd with a wink.

  ‘Was that not a real wake?’ I reply, incredulous.

  ‘Noel’s brother’s house,’ she goes. ‘We were working on food for tonight on the sly and we needed to get you out of the picture.’ Noel is standing beside her, slapping his thigh he’s laughing so hard, the absolute sleeveen.

  ‘But there was a hearse parked outside? I talked to that poor m
an about his dead father for twenty minutes. I ended up saying I’d see him at the burial tomorrow. He cried!’

  ‘The devil is in the details, Ais,’ Carol says and then turns back to her chat with Mags from Zumba with Mags.

  I wheel around to face Mammy. ‘I just can’t believe you went to all this trouble.’

  ‘It’s your thirtieth, pet. Majella suggested it and Constance and myself thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do a dry run with a crowd to see how we got on in advance of launching the eco farm properly. Sadhbh did all the coordinating from abroad. She introduced me to some great apps. Very handy.’

  ‘Are you even afraid of the alpacas, Mammy? Or was it all a ruse to get me up here to feed them?’

  Her face goes stony. ‘They’re fierce creatures, Aisling. Very cruel eyes.’

  Something else dawns on me. ‘Is that why everyone was panicking about the yurts arriving on time?’

  ‘Sure where else would we put people?’ Majella says. ‘I told Sadhbh she could bunk in with me if the worst came to the worst, but that was only because I thought Don would be coming.’

  ‘He’s on vocal rest for Tuesday’s show,’ Sadhbh says apologetically. ‘I swear he’d be here if he wasn’t, Maj. He’s raging his schedule is so insane.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s insane,’ Elaine says, arriving at my side with another bottle of Prosecco and filling my glasses, ‘what you’ve done with this place, Marian. Constance gave us a tour of the yurt village and the yoga space and the nature trail earlier. Ruby actually foraged for food.’