Life's What You Make It

by Sian O'Gorman

  Family events were always a trial for Bronagh. Even though she did all the organising and arranging, she hated them, usually because her mother always said something horrible to her, no one ever appreciated her efforts and she was left with the impression that she was surplus to the requirements of the family. Bronagh was the youngest, her three older brothers – ‘the boys’ – were adored by her mother, and Bronagh had always been ignored.

  ‘I’d love to come,’ I said immediately, taking another sip. ‘Count me in. So, how are the boys?’

  ‘Fine, as far as I know. Chris’s new theory is that body odour is a capitalist concept. Apparently, we all wash too much and are depleting our natural oils.’ She paused. ‘It’s funny, because even though Mum has a Lady Macbeth-esque obsession with washing her hands and dousing herself in Shalimar, she doesn’t seem to be able to smell her three sons.’ She shrugged. ‘And none of them smell particularly sweetly. Chris is still in his tribute band, Mark is a rickshaw driver in Dublin city centre, which Mum refers to as a “boutique travel experience”, and Alan works in a Tex-Mex restaurant, which Mum is convinced is on the verge of winning a Michelin star.’

  ‘Didn’t Alan have such a nose-picking problem that the doctor told him he was in danger of it falling off? That’s not going to go down well with the hygiene inspectors.’

  Bronagh laughed. ‘He did wear away part of his septum, that’s true. But in his defence, I think he has managed to reduce his nose-picking to less critical levels. In public, anyway. So how’s your mum? How is she getting on with the crutches?’

  I thought of how she’d looked earlier when I’d asked her about my father. I loved her with every part of me, but this had lingered for too long. I knew I had to get over it and just leave it be. But I wished I knew and then perhaps I could help Mum. I put down my empty glass.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Bronagh. She’d known for years how I’d struggled with Mum’s silence.

  ‘Mum still won’t tell me…’

  ‘He could be a murderer,’ suggested Bronagh. ‘Or someone famous. You really should be put out of your misery. You need to know if you are the love child of Keanu Reeves.’

  I laughed. ‘But she looked so sad,’ I said. ‘Before, she used to brush me aside, and for the first time she didn’t. I felt she might tell me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Henry turned up… and she couldn’t.’

  ‘Maybe she’s ready. Finally.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Bronagh smiled at me. ‘Hopefully. You deserve to know.’

  ‘I don’t want to force her.’

  ‘What do you think of Henry?’

  ‘Well, he arrived with a bag full of wine and some chocolate. So I think he’s very nice.’

  ‘They do look very happy,’ said Bronagh. ‘I see them walking by the harbour every evening, arm in arm. They always seem to be laughing.’

  I nodded. ‘She did of lot of that earlier when he was there. Despite the dodgy hip flexors. Now, another margarita? I will go and order another two of these glasses of utter deliciousness!’

  6

  Roberto: Just invented a new breakfast. Or dinner. Rice Crispies served with chocolate milk. It’s like cheap Coco Pops.

  Me: Please eat a vegetable. Any one. There’s lots to choose from.

  Roberto: I did. I had some last night. Chips from the chip shop. Had them in bread.

  Me: Please learn to cook!

  Roberto: I can’t. That part of my brain was removed at birth. I’ll just have to keep eating chips until you come home.

  Me: This is blackmail.

  Roberto: If it makes you feel better I promise to buy and eat a tin of soup.

  Me: Please heat it up.

  Roberto: With a side order of chips.

  It was Monday morning, and my first day working in Nell’s. The previous day, Mum and I had gone in and she’d shown me where everything was and how everything worked. I hadn’t been into the shop for years as my visits home had all been so fleeting, but it was looking good. Wooden floors, a modern-looking green chaise longue at the back, beside the two changing rooms. There was the till and packing area to the left, shelves and rails around the back and the right wall. The front was taken up by the large shop window with three headless mannequins. ‘Did they displease you?’ I’d asked. ‘Did they do something wrong?’

  Mum had laughed. ‘That’s what happens to sales assistants who get things wrong,’ she teased.

  ‘But what if I do?’ I’d said. ‘What if I charge too much or too little or give the wrong change?’

  ‘Everything is scannable and anyway no one pays in cash any more,’ she’d replied, while I made notes, desperate not to get things wrong. ‘And if you’re not sure, just ask Jessica.’ There was a tall stool behind the till, and Mum propped herself up. ‘But are you sure you want to do this? It just seems wrong when you need a break more than anyone? I shouldn’t have agreed to you helping in the shop.’

  ‘But it’s going to be fun,’ I’d said, hoping it was. ‘I just need to perfect my selling. Which technique do you prefer – the hover and pounce or benign neglect?’

  ‘Neither,’ Mum had laughed. ‘I just try and be welcoming, no pressure to buy, and create as nice an atmosphere as possible.’

  ‘So, I don’t have to make my targets, or try and drive my commission up?’

  ‘As I said, no pressure. Betty in Nouveau You does have sales targets for her staff. I’ve never bothered.’

  Nouveau You opened in the village long after Mum had been established, but even though they could and should have been rivals, I had never heard Mum say a single disparaging thing about Betty. Her shop was, I thought, far inferior, catering for the frou-frou golf society dinner crowd. Mum always said competition was good for business.

  And now it was Monday morning, for the first time I was regretting volunteering. Nerves and feelings of general inadequacy clung to my insides. One reason, I thought, why people stayed in toxic, unsatisfying jobs, was because it was preferable to having to do anything new. Being home was wonderful in so many ways and yet… there were all those confusing feelings. I loved being here and being with Mum, but I kept having to remind myself that my need to know my origin story was irrelevant. Making sure Mum was okay was the only important thing. It didn’t matter where I came from or what had happened. Mum had loved me and looked after me better than most parents I knew – and certainly better than Bronagh’s. That was all that mattered, wasn’t it?

  Mum gave me a once-over. ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said, immediately. I had agonised over my wardrobe this morning, finally choosing jeans and a floral shirt. After working for eight years in London, where personality was a curse and anything other than navy was viewed with suspicion, my sense of style was totally gone. ‘I look awful.’

  ‘Awful! Don’t say such a thing, if you can’t be nice to yourself, how do you expect anyone else to be nice to you?’

  ‘But you’re only saying I look nice because you don’t want me to have a crisis of confidence or meltdown which might preclude me from going to the shop. I know I look awful and not stylish like you. I didn’t inherit your style gene.’

  She came over and gave me a hug. ‘You do look nice, you always do. You’re my beautiful daughter who would look nice in a paper bag.’

  ‘But I don’t really look nice, though,’ I continued. ‘Not to your standards. Be honest.’

  ‘I think you are gorgeous,’ she insisted. ‘You always are.’

  But I did feel really rather frumpy, like someone in the wrong clothes or the wrong life. In London, looking ‘city-smart’ – suits and boring shirts and flat shoes – was a no-brainer and didn’t require a personality. Over the years, I had forgotten what I actually liked to wear and what suited me.

  Mum went and sat down on the small sofa in the kitchen, in front of the portable television. I brought her over a cup of tea.

  ‘Do you need anything before I go?’ I a
sked. ‘Have you got the remote control? A rug for your knees, your phone?’

  ‘Olivia, I am not an elderly woman,’ said Mum. ‘I may watch some TV. Henry was suggesting a series I might like… but I won’t be sitting down all day. I have strained my hip. Not broken it.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I am meant to be looking after you.’

  ‘And I am looking after you,’ she said. ‘It’s a mutual thing. Now, call me if you need anything, but Jessica is fabulous, you will love her. And Cara, my Saturday girl, might drop in this week. Her exams are starting today, so she may or may not have time. She’s a lovely young woman, I’m very fond of her. I know you will be too.’

  The village was busy with the usual Monday morning bustle and I called into Albatross, the café, for a coffee which I hoped would quell my nerves. It was a lovely café with Formica tables and wooden benches with velvet cushions. On the wall, behind the counter, was a large orange Vertigo poster. A small queue of people hovered in front of the counter, while a small woman, with a head of black curly hair, tonged croissants into paper bags, handed over flat whites and swiped cards in a whirl of motion.

  As the queue shuffled up, I became aware that the woman in front of me was Betty Boyle, the owner of the other village boutique, Nouveau You. I kept my head down.

  ‘I can’t abide people who complain about their health,’ Betty was saying to the person ahead of her. ‘You see,’ she went on, ‘there are people who are well and there are people who just aren’t. And never will be. You know the type, the snifflers and the coughers, the ones always putting their backs out or twisting something or coming down with some deficiency or allergy or condition. You must get those in your surgery a great deal, Dr Butler?’

  Dr Butler? I glanced up to see that it was indeed the handsome man from The Island. His little dog with the huge teeth was standing quite benignly at his feet.

  ‘I call them the Waiting Room Wasters!’ Betty gave a cackle. ‘Now, you must be in good health being a medical man. Anyway, it’s wonderful to have another doctor in the village. Dr Smyth is always so busy. Not that I have need of you, you won’t be seeing me much knocking at your door complaining of something or other.’ She laughed again. ‘There is literally nothing I suffer from.’ Betty then lowered her voice, but I could still hear every word. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘my Jennifer-Louise will be in and out of the surgery. When she has the baby. Scans and weighing and whatnot. Not that we went in for that nonsense when I was with child.’ She gradually came to a halt.

  Jennifer-Louise was Betty’s daughter, a couple of years younger than me at school, and now, as I’d just learned, pregnant.

  ‘Your turn!’ Betty shouted to Dr Butler, giving him a shove. ‘Quick, quick,’ she laughed. ‘And you a doctor. You need to be off on your rounds. Not that I have need of you…’ She raised her voice and spoke to the room. ‘Being in the prime of life.’ She looked around to see who was listening in and her gaze fell upon me. ‘Olivia!’ she said, kissing the air near my cheeks. ‘Your dear, dear, dear mother said you were coming home. Do you know, I think she’s been so lonely without you? I really do! She wasn’t blessed as I have been with a daughter who chose to stay close to home.’

  Dr Butler turned around and gave me a look which I couldn’t quite decipher, but Betty was scrutinising my face, like a beautician before a facial. ‘Still pale, I see,’ she said. ‘Your mother used to be so worried about you. Probably still is. “Betty,” she used to say, “my Olivia is so ghostly, and your Jennifer-Louise is so healthy… what do you feed her?”’

  Betty was one of the downsides to small-town life.

  Dr Butler nodded at me, still inscrutable. Did he look apologetic, as though he was sorry for me to be under Betty’s microscope? Or was he just hoping to escape unscathed, glad that I was being held captive by her questions?

  ‘Didn’t you used to have eczema? Didn’t you have it all over your body? Weren’t you riddled with it?’ she continued.

  Faces turned around to look at me, the person riddled with eczema.

  ‘I wouldn’t have described it quite like that, Betty,’ I said, feeling duty-bound, for the sake of my reputation and dignity, to let everyone in the café know – including Dr Butler (especially Dr Butler!) – that all was well with my skin. ‘It’s fine now. I make my own cream. It’s very effective. I haven’t had a flare-up in years.’

  ‘You make your own cream?’ Betty was looking at me as though I had just announced I was holidaying on Mars. ‘How on earth…? Oh, yes, your stall…’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘I would say over-the-counter might be better. Or I am sure Dr Butler might be able to prescribe something a little more medically sound. Have you met Dr Butler yet? Dr Butler?’ She tapped him on the shoulder.

  He turned around. Again, that inscrutable look. What did I detect? Pity? Did he pity my terrible skin condition? Or was it pity that I was locked in this awful conversation? The coffee in Albatross had better be worth it. I couldn’t go through this every morning.

  ‘Olivia is just back from London. How long are you staying, Olivia?’

  ‘A few weeks,’ I said.

  ‘Olivia makes her own…’ Betty began, but Dr Butler cut her off, having just received his coffee from the woman behind the counter.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t stop. I have to open the surgery.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Betty. ‘No rest for the wicked. Not that you look the wicked type, of course. Remind me to invite you to my annual showcase… it’s quite the fixture in the Sandycove calendar. But, before that, we have the midsummer festival, which my Jennifer-Louise organised wonderfully well last year. Of course, now she is…’ Her voice dropped again. ‘Well, suffice to say, we’ll have to ask someone else to take over the reins. Someone with a little time on her hands.’

  Her eyes alighted on me as Dr Butler made good his escape.

  ‘So good-looking,’ said Betty, as soon as he was out of the door. ‘Like an Errol Flynn. Must take after his mother, she was a beauty in the village. His father…’ She paused. ‘Not so much.’

  ‘Morning, Betty,’ said the woman behind the counter. ‘Your usual?’

  ‘Yes, please, Alison,’ said Betty, turning back to me. ‘Green tea in the morning is excellent for the complexion. You should try it.’

  Finally, she had her tea in one hand. ‘Bye, Olivia. Bye, Alison, and the apricot is beautiful on you. Wasn’t I right? Ciao-ciao! Give my love to that man of yours. Tell James we had his lamb stew and it was delicious.’ And she was gone.

  The woman behind the counter looked up. She held out her hand across the counter. ‘I’m Alison. Your mum told me to look out for you. I could have spotted you a mile off. You look exactly the same.’ She smiled. ‘So what would you like? On the house.’

  ‘No… I couldn’t…’

  ‘I’d really like to,’ she said. ‘It’s a welcome-home present. Coffee?’

  ‘Thank you! Cappuccino then would be lovely,’ I said.

  She nodded and poured one into a cup. ‘Say hi to Jessica,’ said Alison. ‘Tell her I’ve got more of the matcha she likes. Delivery last night.’ She smiled at me. ‘And see you around.’

  7

  ‘Morning!’ Jessica called through the glass of the door of Nell’s. ‘Just be a sec!’ She reached to open the high bolt and then the main lock and pulled open the door, standing to one side to let me in. ‘Lovely to meet you,’ she said, as we shook hands. ‘I can’t believe we haven’t met before, but I suppose I’ve only been here a year.’ She laughed.

  She was slim, petite, with small features and perfectly turned out in skinny jeans and a floral shirt with a small frill around the neck and cuffs, her blonde, glossy hair cascading around her shoulders. I felt the frumpiness of what I was wearing even more acutely.

  ‘Well, Mum says she couldn’t do without you,’ I said.

  Jessica threw me a look, which seemed almost grateful, and I realised that she had been nervous to meet me too.

&nb
sp; ‘Would you like to hang up your bag and jacket?’ she asked. ‘You probably know the shop so well… did you work here when you were younger?’

  I followed her through the shop and into the back, to the kitchenette and office. ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I helped out but didn’t work in the shop with customers. I had my own… my own thing from when I was sixteen.’

  Jessica had been filling the kettle while I sat at the small yellow table. ‘What was that?’ She turned to look at me.

  ‘I used to make my own skincare,’ I explained, wishing I hadn’t brought it up.

  ‘Skincare?’ Jessica looked impressed.

  ‘It was nothing, really,’ I said. ‘I made balms and oils and things like that. It’s not rocket science… I mean, I suppose it’s science…’ I gave a weak little laugh and sipped at my coffee.

  ‘What kind of skincare?’ Jessica was stirring her pot of tea and brought everything to the table and sat in the slightly rickety chair, across from mine.

  ‘Oh, you know…’ This was so long ago that I had to think. ‘I still make my own eczema cream just for me, but I used to make huge batches of it. And face oils and rose moisturiser and lip balms…’

  ‘Sounds amazing,’ she said. ‘And you used to sell them?’

  ‘Mum stocked them here,’ I replied. ‘And I had a market stall and there were a few other stockists. Nothing very successful and, anyway, it’s gone now.’

  But Jessica seemed impressed. ‘Oh wow… that’s amazing. Your mam didn’t mention that. She said you were a personal assistant in London.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I do now,’ I said, drinking my coffee. ‘It’s a very busy… it’s a really… I suppose you could say it’s…’ I paused. ‘It’s actually a really horrible job. I suppose I hate it.’ I’d never said it out loud before, I’d never expressed it to anyone, not even Roberto. But I actually dreaded going to work every day, waking up with that sinking feeling and going to bed feeling drained emotionally and intellectually. At the weekends, I could barely drag myself out of bed. Going out with Jeremy was, I think, an attempt to try and have a normal social life.