Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  ‘We walked down to the Pig and Poddle and met James’s cousins.’ I felt absolutely cat not helping with the party prep, but James looked at me like I had two heads and said it was all being looked after. ‘They had more hair than I’ve ever seen on a person’s head,’ I continue.

  ‘Rich hair.’ Sadhbh nods knowingly. ‘What about his brother? Oh, and won’t your friend Natasia be there?’

  Natasia was Niamh From Across the Road’s Chernobyl child back in the day and wouldn’t you know it she ended up going out with Harry Matthews. It really is a small world.

  ‘They’re coming this evening. Flying in from Reykjavik.’ Natasia went on to be a pilot with KLM so she’s literally flying them in herself. I’m delighted there’s going to be a friendly face at the party, truth be told. Being on best-guest behaviour is exhausting, and if the tit tape goes arseways she can be my lookout.

  I hear the study door open and James’s voice gets louder.

  ‘Sadhbh, I’ve to go.’

  ‘Okay, send me an outfit pic and have fun!’

  I can’t resist it. ‘See you next year!’

  24

  After throwing on a heap of talc and fanning myself with James’s 2002 Beano annual for twenty minutes I eventually get my body temperature low enough for the tit tape to stick. It’s working overtime, to be fair, but Majella assured me it’s jiggle-proof, and she’d know since she still does the odd set-dancing display for any American tourists that have ended up in the Mountrath on Paddy’s Day. The tips are legendary, even if she’s considered way over the hill on the ‘circuit’.

  A familiar knot of anxiety is tightening in my stomach. James casually mentioned this morning that his ex-girlfriend will be coming. This was the first I’d heard of her, and once again I’m struck by how little I actually know James. I pressed him for more information, and apparently her family are pally with the Matthewses and growing up they were practically like brother and sister until they went away to college, or uni, as he insists on calling it, and fell in love. He said they were together for a few years before she moved to Bury St Edmunds to work in an art gallery. I didn’t ask him, but I bet she wears mad glasses.

  ‘Aisling?’

  It’s James. I’m eyeing the purple dress longingly when he walks into the bedroom.

  ‘Wow! You look … amazing. That’s different!’

  I pull at the lapels of the blazer to see if they’ll come in any further over the exposed bit of my chest. ‘Is it too much? It’s not very me.’ I’m not in the habit of asking James how I look, although, to be fair to him, he often tells me. I was always asking John and he just said the same thing no matter what – that I looked ‘lovely’ – and it started to lose all meaning. It makes me a bit shy to have James looking at me. It’s like being scrutinised by a stranger, somehow.

  ‘You look great. Super festive.’

  Is that a good thing? Who knows?

  ‘Ready to come down? Celine has finally arrived.’

  ‘Shite, she hasn’t, has she? I’m on the way.’ I scramble for Sharon’s sandals and fire my Heather Shimmer and some other bits into my clutch bag.

  ‘Just a heads-up, Rose has arrived too …’

  Rose is the ex. ‘Oh right.’

  ‘… and she can’t wait to meet you.’

  He holds out a hand and I wobble towards him to grasp it. He’s wearing a suit tonight too, as it happens, but his is navy. And he’s wearing a shirt under it, the lucky article.

  I’m expecting to hear music and voices and maybe even the odd clang of a fork hitting the floor when I open the bedroom door, but it sounds suspiciously sedate downstairs.

  ‘People have definitely arrived, have they?’ I ask. Mammy and Daddy only ever had the one New Year’s Eve party, when I was about ten. The whole of BGB was mad into line dancing that year, and my only memory is rows of old people doing kick-ball-turns and stomping around the yard as midnight approached. I’ll never forget the sight of Daddy in jeans and a Stetson swinging Mammy around and Shem Moran’s illegal fireworks nearly taking the arm off him while myself and Majella watched out the spare-room window.

  ‘Oh yes, I think half of Buckleton is in the sunroom.’ James laughs. ‘Dad is in the drawing room holding forth with his cricket club mates. Best to avoid them until you’ve had at least two glasses of wine.’

  ‘Right you are,’ I say, trying my best to remember how to walk in heels as he steers me through the foyer towards a stony-faced couple in their sixties holding tiny glasses.

  ‘Aunt Isabelle, Uncle Bert, this is Aisling,’ he says, leading me over to them while I paste on a smile and try to concentrate on not sweating or tripping.

  ‘Aisling, hello,’ Uncle Bert says to my bust while his tongue hangs loosely out of the corner of his mouth. ‘We heard James had someone new. And an Irish girl at that. Honouring his mother’s heritage. Lovely to meet you.’

  ‘Lovely to meet you … too,’ I say, extending my hand while Aunt Isabelle gives me the once-over out of the corner of her eye. I’m tempted to tell her I was coerced into wearing the suit and I’ve a perfectly nice wrap dress upstairs that I’d much rather be in, but James is already leading me down the hall and away from them.

  ‘Sorry about him,’ he whispers into my ear. ‘He’s a bit of an old letch. Let’s get you a drink.’

  As we round the corner, a woman in her late fifties wearing a long, floaty dress breaks away from a small group by the door of the sunroom and comes towards us, arms outstretched.

  ‘James, darling. And this must be Aisling?’ She goes in for the two cheek kisses. She smells like Duty Free in Dublin Airport Terminal Two. Rich face creams and exotic scents.

  James smiles tightly at her. ‘Aisling, this is Celine, my mother.’

  This is not what I was expecting. I was expecting pearls and high-necked blouses and a woman who maybe looked like one of the toilet-roll covers upstairs. Celine is wearing necklaces but they look more like Sadhbh’s crystals than pearls. She has delicate silver rings on her fingers and her naturally greying hair is piled up on her head like Katherine Hepburn’s in that Africa film.

  ‘You look darling, my dear,’ Celine says, taking a glass of champagne from a passing tray. ‘Did James tell you my mother’s side of the family is Irish? From Ranelagh.’

  ‘He did of course. My friend actually just bought a house around the –’

  ‘And you came all this way to Buckleton for our James. Such serious young people. You do amuse me.’ And with that she floats away.

  What an incredibly cracked thing to say. I steal a glance at James, who looks a little annoyed and a little bored by his mother. He breaks a smile, though.

  ‘Shall we?’ He points towards the sunroom door, behind which is the hum of conversation and music. My belly does a jump towards my throat and I take a deep breath and smooth down the lapels of my jacket, half-wishing I was in the Vortex throwing shapes to some Ed Sheeran banger.

  Just as James drops my hand to push the heavy double doors open and I walk through, my heel catches in a loose flagstone and I stumble and fall on one knee, cursing under my breath. It all happens in slow motion. My forehead is just about to hit the deck when a pair of hands extends from behind me and grabs me under the arms just in time.

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve got her,’ the woman helping me up says in a husky voice, and I know before I even turn around that it’s her. It’s Rose. And I was right – she’s wearing glasses with thick black frames and, no, God no, a suit. Except hers is white and baggy and she’s got a little red top on underneath and a high ponytail swishing around her shoulders. Rich hair. I’m puce and clutching my jacket lapels together to contain my dignity. What am I doing wearing four-inch heels in someone’s house anyway? Nobody else is teetering around like me. I should be in my Crocs.

  ‘Ais, are you hurt?’ James gently pulls me towards a seat while the guests get back to their conversations. It’s mostly an older crowd with a smattering of people in their twenties and thirties. I
spy James’s cousin Bryony and she gives me a wave. Most of the older people are women. Maybe they’re all widows? A teacher in Majella’s school lost her mam on Stephenses Day and Majella made the quite chilling observation that ‘we’re at that age when parents start dying’ and I suppose she’s right. Well, she’s definitely right in my case. Just then, though, the sunroom doors open again and a great gale of male laughter comes from the direction of what James has called a drawing room but anyone with eyes can see is the Good Front Room. Ah yes, that’s where the men are. Cricket widows, maybe, rather than actual widows. Marie comes speeding into the room. News of me going head over heels has obviously travelled.

  ‘Do you need some ice for that knee?’ she says, discreetly removing some china figurines and a large poinsettia from my general vicinity.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, thanks very much now,’ I babble, trying to shrink down to the point of invisibility.

  ‘I’ll get you that drink. Sit tight,’ James goes. ‘Champagne, Rose?’ he calls over his shoulder.

  ‘Please,’ Rose calls back. ‘That’s happened to me before,’ she whispers, sitting down beside me. ‘These old floors. Anyway, hi. I’m Rose.’

  ‘Aisling,’ I say with a nod. ‘Thanks for … that.’ I smile brightly, trying my best to take in the room.

  ‘Those heels are something else – I love your outfit,’ Rose says kindly as I do my best to keep my bra inside it.

  ‘Thanks a million.’

  She laughs. ‘I love that saying, “thanks a million”. Your accent is so soft.’

  ‘Thanks … a million.’

  She laughs again. ‘When did you arrive?’

  ‘Just yesterday.’

  ‘Did James give you a tour of the village yet?’

  ‘Yeah, he showed me a few of the sights alright. It’s lovely here. I can’t believe there’s no ATM, to be honest.’

  Rose glances over to the bar where James is chatting to a woman wearing a turban. ‘So, you and James? He seems happy.’

  God, she’s getting right into it. ‘Does he? That’s good.’

  It dawns on me that James always seems fairly happy. Nothing much seems to stress him out or set him off. In fact, the only time I’ve really seen him in anything approaching a mood was on the drive here from the airport. There was just an air of tension around him that even Mammy’s present of six loaves of soda bread couldn’t shift. And again, just now in front of his mother. He was like a different person.

  ‘He’s a good guy. Very loyal. Very … I don’t know, just very James.’ She looks a bit wistful and I wonder if she’s gearing up to fly over to him and declare her love. I bristle a little. He’s my James. She might have the better suit but I have a new Daniel Wellington watch. I push up my left jacket sleeve in case she’s missed it.

  ‘He’s one in a million,’ I say, somewhat sharper than I had intended but feeling territorial. I don’t want her getting ideas.

  She just laughs, though. ‘How long have you been seeing each other?’

  ‘About four months. Nearly five, actually.’ I don’t tell her that only two of those months have been ‘official’ – she doesn’t need to know that. It dawns on me that it hasn’t actually been very long at all, but I suppose things move a bit faster when you hit your thirties. Nobody has time to be hanging around.

  ‘Have you met Celine?’ Rose asks with interest.

  ‘I have – just there, actually.’ I try to keep my voice neutral.

  ‘She’s an enigma,’ Rose goes. I find myself nodding in agreement as Celine walks into the sunroom and joins a group of women by the wicker chairs, and even from where I’m standing I can see her greetings are disingenuous. Meanwhile, George has emerged from the drawing room holding a tumbler of brandy and is greeting a man whose name appears to be Bumbo with an enormous handshake.

  ‘Are they … still together?’ I haven’t asked James this outright and he hasn’t offered any more detail. But I can tell from my brief encounters with both of them that they’re like chalk and cheese. Celine is a like a cheese you might not have even heard of yet. One from the fancy section in a larger Tesco.

  Rose purses her lips. ‘Well, she lives here some of the time, I guess. Which wasn’t always the case. I suppose they’ve never had much of a relationship. Especially after she left them. And James and Harry spent so much of their lives in boarding schools and ski camps and French colleges.’

  James has never mentioned anything to me about his mother leaving, but Rose obviously thinks I know so I babble to her that my only experience with skiing was the dry slopes in Kilternan on a transition year day trip and it lashed rain and Catherine Mulloy hydroplaned right into a bin. Rose just laughs.

  ‘You know, I’m so glad James has met you. He’s got a lot of love to give. I always said I’d like to see him settle down with someone lovely.’ She squeezes my hand. ‘And you seem to be someone lovely. And when he’s into someone, he’s really into them. I mean, who could blame him? He hasn’t had the most stable upbringing.’ With that she nods towards Celine on one side of the sunroom and then towards George outside the door.

  ‘We’re still sort of getting to know each other,’ I say, wishing James would extract himself from that conversation and get back over here. ‘He’s great, though. Not like any of the lads at home. Ha!’

  ‘Really? Why do you say that?’ Rose looks amused.

  I think for a second. ‘He’s just … very different.’

  ‘Different good?’

  I pause for a second, not wanting to be disloyal to the lads. ‘Ah sure, you know yourself,’ I say finally. ‘A change is as good as a holiday.’

  A commotion kicks off over by the door and I recognise Natasia’s voice above the chatter. Getting to my feet is like trying to get up out of a bean bag, such is the height of the heels, but I manage and follow Rose out into the hall, looking back for James, who catches my eye and excuses himself from Turban and Top Hat to come out with us. I break into a smile and lean back against James’s arm as Harry and Natasia bundle in out of the cold, waving hello to Natasia and feeling so thankful to see her friendly face. She and Harry join me, James and Rose back in the sunroom and he regales them with tales from BGB and the big homecoming while Natasia tells us about the drunkest and most hungover people she’s seen getting on an aeroplane. I’m surprised Majella’s infamous hungover return from Puerto Banús in 2014 isn’t somehow in her repertoire. She managed to convince the flight staff that she had a tummy bug and they considered making an emergency landing.

  ‘God, James, that reminds me of the time you and I were coming home from Stockholm after you ate that suspect shellfish,’ Rose says with a tinkly laugh. Then she turns to me. ‘He threw up in my handbag, Aisling. I could have killed him.’

  ‘It wasn’t a Michael Kors, was it?’ I gasp, giving James a horrified look.

  ‘Mulberry,’ she whispers to me.

  ‘I hope this new chap you’re with can handle his lobster,’ Harry says with a laugh, and I laugh along too because I’ve never had lobster. It looks far too complicated.

  ‘I didn’t know you were seeing someone, Rose,’ James says, taking a sip of his champagne.

  ‘It’s only been a few months,’ she replies with a smile. ‘Thanks for that, Harry.’

  ‘I thought it was public knowledge.’ Harry shrugs. I feel James’s arm tense slightly around my waist when suddenly the call goes up.

  ‘Ninety seconds to go. Outside everybody, outside!’

  I fire my texts off to Mammy and Maj and Sadhbh, eager to get them sent before the phone lines jam at midnight. I would always text Mammy and Daddy from the Vortex at a quarter to, not wanting to leave the all-important ‘Happy New Year’ to chance. I stuff my phone back into my clutch and teeter out to the hall after James, Harry, Natasia and Rose, just in time to hear James drop the bombshell that he and his parents hadn’t opened any Christmas presents until 4 p.m. What the hell were they doing?! I’d nearly have something returned by four on Chri
stmas Day.

  There’s a box of blankets laid out by the door and James takes one and hands it to me before running to grab two glasses of champagne. Rose walks on ahead with Harry, and Natasia links my arm as we navigate the pebbled driveway towards the neatly manicured lawn at the side of the house. It’s so green I half-expected it to be fake, but when my heel sinks into it I know it’s the real deal alright. Impressive.

  ‘It’s so nice to see you here. Imagine us both ending up in this place to ring in the New Year.’ Natasia and I spent much of the formative days and weeks of our teenage friendship wondering how many sweets we could get in Filan’s for fifty pence and teaching each other the Irish and Ukrainian for ‘shifting’ and ‘two Loop the Loops, please’.

  She nods over towards Rose and says, ‘You met her? Isn’t she a doll?’

  ‘A doll,’ I agree. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Rose mentioned something about James’s parents and their relationship – well, about his mother leaving?’

  Natasia sighs sadly. ‘George took the boys to Wales for a holiday when Harry was ten and James was, what, eleven years old? When they came back, Celine was gone. Moved back to her mother’s place in Ireland. She was with an artist for a few years and then a poet, I think Harry said. They didn’t really see her again until Harry was sixteen.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘It wasn’t a happy house. She met George when she was young and never took much interest in her family. Harry says Marie is more of a mother.’ She squeezes my arm. ‘I’m so glad James is happy again. You’re perfect for him.’

  I smile in the darkness but feel a twinge of something in my stomach. Everyone wants the best for James so much. It all seems to be resting on me and I hope I can give it to him.

  Before I can answer, a glass is pressed into my hand and another blanket whooshed over my shoulders as James gathers me into him and covers his own shoulders too. I give him the tightest hug I can, imagining him coming home to find his mother gone. The poor craythur.