Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  ‘It has been a pleasure to transport you Irish ladies, but now you are arrived at your accommodations,’ Diego announces sadly into a little microphone and I swear I hear a crack in his voice. Majella had introduced him to Ellen before we’d left the airport car park and the two of them hit it off famously on the twenty-minute journey. Tenerife certainly does an excellent line in charismatic drivers.

  ‘A woman is like a tea-bag – you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.’ It’s one of my all-time favourite inspirational quotes and I’m repeating it to myself when I eventually pluck up the courage to open my eyes.

  Diego is standing up, holding out his penis hat, presumably for tips.

  I look out the window to my left as the women start shaking each other awake and trying to find their handbags. Where the jaded block once stood is now a gleaming white six-storey building surrounded by towering palm trees. The fountain is gone, no great loss there, and in its place is a lush flower bed with PARADISE spelled out in vibrant red hibiscus flowers. I can’t believe it. Flo wasn’t lying and she didn’t skim my bank account – they really did renovate the place! And not a minute too soon. I’m positively weak with relief, so much so that I accidentally lean on Diego for support and get a filthy look from Ellen.

  Majella sits bolt upright from where she was stretched out on the back seat. She has tears in her eyes. ‘Ais, it’s stunning.’

  Unfortunately, not everyone made it to Emilio’s for tapas in the end. I don’t want to name names but one or two of Majella’s relations took to their air-conditioned rooms as soon as we checked in and didn’t surface again. I can’t say I blame them, to be honest – the new beds are that comfortable and the thermostat was a cinch to use. You don’t want to know how many times one of those little panels has beaten me and I’ve gone to bed in a hotel room either blue from the cold or sweating bullets.

  And Flo was very apologetic about the whole lack of contact thing. Apparently their email server has been down for months and they have to do all their correspondence through a local man with a donkey.

  Majella had been a bit nervous about meeting Pablo’s mother, the two sisters, six aunts and eight cousins, but being in the tapas bar was the perfect ice-breaker since there was loads of translating to do and the local vino was flowing for anyone on their second wind. After half an hour they were doing some serious wedding chat over albondigas and sending selfies back to Pablo in BGB. I can only imagine the floods he was in.

  ‘I have to say, I didn’t really know what to expect from this,’ Sadhbh admits, casually helping herself to one of my churros while I pretend not to notice, ‘but this is great craic, Ais. Some of the women are really letting their hair down.’

  She’s talking about Bridget, another of Majella’s aunts, who’s sitting on Emilio’s lap while he mops his brow with a red hanky. A livid-looking woman, who I can only assume is Mrs Emilio, is giving him daggers from behind the small bar.

  ‘I just want to make sure Maj has a good time. It’s a lot of pressure being the only bridesmaid,’ I say.

  ‘I can imagine. I did think you looked a bit tired when I saw you this morning. Did the smudging help at all?’

  ‘Ah yeah, a bit, I think.’ I hope I sound convincing.

  ‘Don’t forget to have fun yourself too, right? And if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. You can borrow my crystals.’

  ‘Thanks, Sadhbh, but I have it all under control.’ At least I hope I do.

  36

  I’m standing in the foyer of the Paradise Aqua with the box of customised T-shirts, forty-eight pairs of blank white knickers (varying arse coverage), the zogabongs, the flower crowns, the flashing shot-glass necklaces and thirty inflatable shamrocks, tapping my foot impatiently. My hives had all but disappeared last night but the heat now isn’t doing them any favours. The pedi-buses will be here soon, and so far only about half the women have surfaced and are standing around comparing sunburn, even though the only time they were outside was walking in from the bus yesterday. It’s impressive, really.

  I have my phone in my hand ready to send Maj a hurry-up text – we’re on a schedule, like – when the lift doors open and she comes skulking out looking unimpressed. My hackles are up immediately. Did she not sleep well? Did things go south with Juana? Does she need a Nurofen Plus? Or a shot of sambuca? I have both on me.

  ‘Everything alright, Maj?’ I ask casually. That’s when I realise she’s wearing a coat. It’s already sixteen degrees in the shade. She’s going to melt. ‘You’ll be roasting once you start pedalling, you know. There are a few steep hills on the route,’ I say, digging out the I’m the Bride fluffy zogabongs and handing them over along with the shot-glass necklace.

  ‘I can’t, Ais.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘My T-shirt. I have to hide it.’

  ‘But I got you the one you wanted,’ I say, rooting in the box for it. ‘One Last Ride for the Bride on the front and It’s All About Me on the back. Size small.’ I hold it out to her but she just shakes her head.

  ‘I can’t. Pablo snuck this one into my bag. And I promised him I’d wear it.’

  She opens the coat. The T-shirt is neon yellow, with a giant picture of Pablo’s beaming face on the front. ‘This Is My Fiancé,’ reads the text. ‘I Don’t Want Your Burger, I Have Steak at Home.’

  It takes the pedi-bus man twenty minutes to explain to us how to make the yokes go. His name is Clive and he’s actually from Canada, so we can’t even blame the slow uptake on a language barrier.

  ‘I have a bad knee. What if I need to stop for a break?’ Shirley asks, rolling up her sleeves and climbing on to the last available seat.

  ‘As long as everyone else keeps going, the bus will continue to move,’ Clive says, looking exasperated. ‘It’s a group effort, remember?’

  ‘How do we steer it again?’ Bridget asks.

  ‘Once again, ladies, I’ll be looking after the navigation,’ Clive replies, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Come on, women, I want to get moving,’ Liz Moran shouts from two buses back. I don’t think the three sisters have spent this amount of time together since they were kids, and I can see why. They don’t get along very well.

  Majella is sitting across from me wearing the Pablo T-shirt over her proper bride one. I thought it was a decent compromise. I nipped out this morning and bought plenty of water as well as more Prosecco, so she has a plastic flute in her hand again. At this point I’m afraid to look at my bank balance, which is a new concept to me. I normally know exactly how much is in there at all times.

  ‘Can you plug in my phone there, Clive, and we’ll get going,’ I say, passing it up to him. There’s a short pause and then the opening bars of the Proclaimers’ seminal hit ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ blares out of the speakers.

  ‘Yeow!’ shrieks Majella, and we start pedalling.

  We’re thirty minutes late pulling up to the Claddagh Bar, and Clive had the foresight to have an ambulance waiting for us on arrival. ‘This isn’t my first rodeo,’ he mutters, loading the pedi-buses onto the back of a flatbed truck and screeching off into the Tenerifian sunset.

  Another reason to be glad I made sure everyone packed their European Health Insurance cards. You can’t take any chances when you’re abroad.

  Despite my best efforts pushing bottles of water on people, Dee, Mairead, Danielle and two other cousins need intravenous rehydration and Shirley has to be treated for mild sunstroke. I couldn’t stop her flinging her Roscommon Ladies Golf Club sun visor at a crowd sitting outside a café as we trundled past so she only has herself to blame.

  I check my phone while the rest of them head into the bathroom of the pub to reapply their faces.

  There’s a text from James. ‘How’s it all going? Miss you xx.’

  I meant to give him a ring last night, but after I’d poured Pablo’s relations into a taxi, got the rest of them out of the restaurant and fixed up with Emilio it was far too late in the
end. And then I had to get everything ready for today.

  ‘Grand,’ I say back. ‘Rooms are great and everyone still alive, I think. Just waiting for the granny now.’

  The meeting between Majella and Pablo’s Abuela Sofia has been a source of concern for both families. From the bits of conversation I overheard last night, the matriarch sounds like a formidable woman and, according to Paola, Pablo is her golden grandchild. She’s fairly devastated he’s marrying a ‘gringa’, especially one as pale as Maj, and there was even talk of her sitting out the wedding as a form of protest. I didn’t want to inflict the pedi-bus on her, what with her being ninety-six, but Maj asked me to seat them near each other for the knicker decorating so she can show off the Español she’s been learning on Duolingo. She’s the bride so I couldn’t say no, but I’m sincerely hoping nothing kicks off. I had an Abuela Up for It T-shirt made up so she’ll feel included.

  ‘Do you have the pants, Aisling?’ Elaine goes, once the women are all sitting around the long rectangular table. ‘Pass ’em over – myself and Ruby can give them out.’

  ‘Thanks a million, girls,’ I say gratefully, before heading to the bar to make sure the signature cocktails I preordered weeks ago over email are ready. First we’re having Mango Majellatinis, then it’s Majitos, then Majaritas and finally a round of Long Island Iced Majellas.

  Once everyone has their knickers, I put out baskets of glue, scissors, lace, ribbons, googly eyes, sequins, rhinestones, letters and a load of other bits. China really came through for me in this instance, and I’m delighted to see Majella getting stuck in straightaway and the rest of them following suit. By the time the cocktails are served, the craic is up to ninety and I’m actually very impressed with some of the designs. Teresa has fashioned an elegant peephole into the back of her classic briefs while Maria did a sparkly Spanish flag on the front of her boy shorts. I’m actually in awe of Maj, though, who managed to spell out Pablo in glittery letters on the back of her thong – especially since she dropped down to pass Home Ec for her Junior Cert and missed all the sewing. The less said about what Shirley did with the crotch of her control pants the better.

  ‘They look fab, hun,’ Sharon says on the way to the bathroom, pointing at the pink sparkly J I’m sticking on to my Brazilian briefs with sequins. ‘I can’t believe you’ve organised all this on your own. Majella is having the time of her life over there.’

  I follow Sharon’s gaze and it’s true. Maj is having a ball talking to Paola and Ellen, Majarita in one hand, glue gun in the other. Once I get through today, I’ll be over the worst of it, and I can focus on the weddings. Then I see Majella’s face fall and she puts down her glass. I look over to the front door of the Claddagh and there she is, the abuela, looking around the pub and clutching her handbag close to her chest. She has a face on her that would make an onion cry.

  Juana jumps up and starts babbling in Spanish and gesticulating wildly while Majella sits there, her arse rooted to the seat. Apart from Liz, who’s keeping an eye on things while stitching Up Rangers on to her hipsters, no one has noticed anything amiss. Juana is saying something to the abuela while pointing over at Majella, but the abuela isn’t moving. In fact, she’s shaking her head. Of course, I can’t understand a word of what’s being said but I know it’s time for me to intervene.

  ‘Abuela,’ I say, grabbing her T-shirt and curtsying before her. She just looks at me. ‘Please join us in the ceremony of knicker decorating.’ Then I turn back to Juana with a look that I hope says, ‘Can you translate that there, please?’ She gets it, thankfully, and reels off a load of Spanish. Again, I haven’t a clue what’s being said. I can feel Majella’s eyes boring into the back of my head.

  I proffer the T-shirt to the abuela. ‘From Ireland, a gift to you,’ I say, again hoping Juana translates, which she does. This time the abuela actually takes the T-shirt with a muttered ‘gracias’. She unfolds it, and for a minute I’m not sure if she hates it or if she just has one of those resting bitch faces I keep reading about in women’s magazines. Juana points at the text and whispers something to her in Spanish. Then the abuela throws her head back and roars laughing before walking over to Majella, dragging her out of her seat and giving her a massive, all-encompassing hug.

  37

  I can’t really remember the rest of the day, to be honest – probably because the Long Island Iced Majellas basically blew the heads off us. And we had more than one of them to celebrate Abuela Sofia joining the party. Many more. My original plan had been to get everyone back to the Paradise Aqua to change into the traditional Tenerifian rigouts, but once Sofia got going there was no stopping her. When Juana said she was ‘formidable’ what she meant was she’s mad. Wild! She’s basically a tiny Spanish Majella and, naturally, the two of them got on like a house on fire.

  So we stayed at the Claddagh until it was time to go to Fibber Magee’s, which is where John and I spent the bulk of our time during our own Tenerifian holiday. It’s also where he met a camogie-playing temptress called Ciara, but the less said about her the better. I’m delighted that I don’t recognise her or anyone else when we arrive, but there’s a framed picture of us behind the bar with the rest of their most loyal customers, which I thought was a nice touch. Anyway, we basically took over the place. Well, there were forty-eight of us, to be fair, and it’s not a big pub. I don’t know how many little cones of fish and chips we got through but it was a lot. Then it was time for karaoke. Sofia and Majella set the standard with a haunting rendition of ‘Ebony and Ivory’, followed by Liz Moran who nearly brought the house down with ‘Country Roads, Take Me Home’. Again, my memory is hazy, but I know me, Maj, Sadhbh, Elaine and Ruby did ‘Wannabe’ by the Spice Girls because there are pictures to prove it. Christ. Ruby insisted on being Mel C and did a back-flip. I was Baby, obviously. And then the dares – oh my god, the dares. The dares are why I woke up with some Dutch fella’s boxers in my backpack. But nothing was worse than when the stripper arrived. In hindsight, the fact that the website had no pictures of him should have been a red flag. But I just can’t resist a deal, and he was 40 per cent off for the month of March. Cris el Oficial de Policia – Cris the Cop. He sounded perfect for Majella’s needs. I even brought along a pair of pink furry handcuffs in case Cris didn’t have any. You can’t have a hen party with a stripping guard and not have pink furry handcuffs. Long story short, Cris was short for Cristina. But Maj sat there and took her lap dance like the pro that she is because I’d paid for it in full and the email said there were no refunds. Cris was very good to stop mid-thrust and wait while we took my phone out to read the fine print.

  What I remember most, though, was Majella’s speech. It was after closing time and we’d all drank ourselves sober but were refusing to leave while the Fibber’s staff cleaned up around us and tutted loudly.

  ‘Ladies,’ Maj had slurred into the mic. It wasn’t even on. ‘I can’t feckin’ wait to marry Pablo.’ We’d all cheered, of course – no one more than Sofia, who is adamant that the happy couple comes back to live with her. ‘I can’t wait to be his wife and you know why? It’s because I looove him. I do. I love him. And I tell him everything. And he knows me better than I know myself, which is how I know this is the real deal. I can’t get anything past him.’ That’s when the tears started. ‘And I’m just so in love and so happy and Mammy –’ Liz’s head shot up from where she’d been resting it on the bar, obviously asleep ‘– I’ll be sorry to leave you, but I can’t wait till me and Pab have our own place because, well … And Sadhbh! Where’s Sadhbh?’ Sadhbh was reclining on the pool table. ‘I fancy Don Shields something rotten but I’d still pick my Pab over him any day – I don’t care how famous he is.’ Sadhbh just gave her a thumbs-up and lay back down. At this point, Majella was crying so much she was almost incoherent, and I was about to pick her up and throw her over my shoulder when she said, ‘And Aisling?’ I sat up straighter in my chair, waiting for her to heap praise on me. Maybe even call me up to say a few words myself. ‘Let�
��s all raise a glass to Aisling, the best bridesmaid ever in the world ever ever. I can’t wait to marry Pablo and I can’t wait for you to marry John.’

  I froze momentarily and the girls from home – everyone who knows John, basically – all looked to me for a reaction while the others whooped and cheered because, well, why wouldn’t they? It’s a nice sentiment, except John is not my boyfriend. I didn’t want to make a scene on Majella’s big night so I pretended nothing had happened, hopped up and started firing discarded knickers and T-shirts into my massive suitcase.

  ‘Come on, girls, time to call it a night,’ I said, avoiding Majella’s eye. We got separate taxis home and that’s where we left it.

  There are only a handful of other guests at the Paradise Aqua so I have no trouble securing thirty sun loungers at the pool the next morning, especially at 8 a.m. I’m not expecting to see the others until much later but I didn’t want to run the risk of us not having enough umbrellas. I’ve already shoved the hangover recovery bags, which have sachets of Dioralyte and little paracetamol duos in them, under everyone’s doors because I’m still in charge of this hen party for the next twenty-four hours and never let it be said that I shirk my responsibilities just because I’m hanging.

  ‘Hey.’

  It’s Majella looking sheepish with a tin of Diet Coke in each hand. I’m very surprised to see her in direct sunlight at this hour.

  ‘I knocked in for you but there was no answer so I guessed you’d be down here –’ she nods at the thirty sun loungers draped in thirty towels ‘– doing this.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want a repeat of what happened yesterday. Ambulances aren’t cheap here.’

  She smiles. ‘Are you okay, Ais? You’ve been very quiet. You seem preoccupied or something.’

  ‘I’m grand, grand. Just very busy with everything, that’s all. Are you having a good hen?’