Whose Life is it Anyway?

by Sinéad Moriarty

  ‘Granddad!’ I groaned. ‘I’m on holidays.’

  ‘Your mother asked me to teach you about the history of Ireland and that’s what I’m going to do. You’re too cynical about it all, so I’m going to show you how proud you should be of the little island we come from,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘He’s been preparing for days. Humour him,’ said Granny, winking at me.

  I shrugged. ‘OK, but there’d better not be any homework.’

  We set off for the city centre and, to be honest, I thought it was going to be a long day, like a boring history lesson at school, but I was wrong. Granddad Byrne brought history alive. He told the story of the Easter Rising with such passion that I felt as if I was there as it was happening. When he got to the part where James Connolly was so badly injured that he couldn’t stand up to be executed, so the English shot him sitting down, I was in tears. How could they have been so cruel? To shoot a cripple! I was incensed. I wanted to know more. I bombarded Granddad with questions, which he answered patiently. I felt ashamed at myself for thinking Ireland was crap.

  ‘Is that what the song “The Foggy Dew” is about?’ I sang: ‘“For those who died that Eastertide/In the springing of the year.”’

  ‘Yes, Niamh. That’s probably the most famous of the songs about 1916.’

  I felt terrible that I’d always laughed when Uncle Donal’s eyes misted over as he sang that song. How had I not known about it?

  Granddad did a serious number on me. By the time the three weeks were up I was a nationalist through and through. We went to a special Famine exhibition in the National Museum, where I cried at the stories of starvation and coffin ships; he told me about Parnell, explained Home Rule and filled me in on de Valera, Collins and the civil war.

  I was enthralled. Ireland was a great country, a brave country, that struggled through years of oppression and cruelty. But it had survived. From Granddad Byrne I learnt to be proud of my heritage, not ashamed of it. Now I was more confused than ever.

  ‘What am I, Granddad? I was born in England. I live there. I sound English but I use Irish expressions. I like England – it’s the only place I know. It’s my home. Ireland is a place I go to on holidays. I feel like an outsider here, but now I’m angry with the English for being so mean to poor Ireland. But I am English, aren’t I? Oh, I don’t know what I am any more. I just want to fit in.’

  ‘You’re a mongrel,’ he said, laughing. ‘You’re half English, half Irish, and if you use the best qualities of both cultures and backgrounds, you’ll be a very interesting and well-rounded person. Don’t deny either heritage. Embrace and accept them. Sure isn’t it great to be different? Who wants to be the same as everyone else?’

  ‘I do.’ I sighed. ‘When you’re my age, Granddad, you just want to fit in. Sticking out isn’t cool, especially when you’re plain, not very popular and never allowed out past nine. I might as well pack it in now and join the Carmelites.’

  ‘You’ve an Irish sense of humour,’ said Granny Byrne. ‘You don’t realize it yet, but you’ve a wonderful dry wit. You get it from me,’ she added, puffing out her chest. ‘That’s one of the positive Irish sides to your personality. Nurture it. Boys like girls who make them laugh.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Granddad agreed. ‘I’d a shower of stunners chasing me around Dublin, but none of them made me laugh. So I married the ugly one with the sense of humour.’

  Granny Byrne swatted him with a tea-towel. ‘The cheek of you.’

  ‘You’re a great catch, Niamh, and don’t let anyone tell you different. Wait until you meet a boy who appreciates you and doesn’t try to change you. That’s the key to a successful relationship – that, and a lot of laughter,’ said Granny Byrne, hugging me.

  ‘Can I stay with you for ever?’ I asked. ‘I feel at home here.’

  ‘That’s because you get the undivided attention of two doting grandparents. No, pet, you can’t stay. You have to go home, back to your life in London, and study very hard so you can go to college and make your mother proud,’ said Granddad. ‘But in the meantime we have a birthday to organize. What would you like to do?’

  The best part of being in Dublin – apart from the fact that I wasn’t ashamed of my Irishness any more – was that I’d be celebrating my sixteenth birthday without a big party and a fuss. ‘I’d like a picnic by the sea,’ I said. The other great thing about Dublin was that there was a lovely beach only ten minutes’ drive from Granny and Granddad Byrne’s house.

  ‘That’s a wonderful idea,’ said Granny.

  ‘And Madonna’s new album,’ I said, knowing they wouldn’t have a clue who she was and would therefore allow me to have it; my mother said she was a harlot using the Blessed Virgin’s name in vain.

  23

  When I got home I told Mum and Dad that I was proud to be Irish and that Granddad Byrne was the best history teacher in the world. Dad was beside himself with happiness, and Mum gave him an I-told-you-she-was-better-off-with-my-parents-than-your-sister-Nora look.

  I threw myself into my new-found love of Ireland with a gusto that took everyone by surprise. I regaled my family non-stop with Granddad Byrne’s history lessons.

  Siobhan called me a lick-arse and said I was only pretending to like all the Irish stuff to get Dad on my side. She said he’d soon see through it and I’d be back to being the least favourite again. I told her she was a fat slapper who was jealous because I’d got to spend so much time on my own with our grandparents. She told me I was an ugly loser who’d never have children because no man would go near me. She had a point there, so I left the room before I started to cry because I was going to be an old maid.

  Even Finn thought I’d lost the plot. He kept glancing at me and shaking his head. Eventually he asked me if I’d been kidnapped and brainwashed by Irish republican terrorists.

  ‘Of course I haven’t,’ I said, insulted at the notion that anyone would be able to brainwash me.

  ‘The whole point of being brainwashed is that you don’t know you are,’ Finn explained. ‘Do you remember talking to any strangers or accepting food or drink from anyone you didn’t know?’

  ‘No, Finn, I didn’t. I was with Granny and Granddad the whole time.’

  ‘Maybe they got to them first,’ he mused. ‘That would explain it.’

  ‘This isn’t an episode of MacGyver.’ I was exasperated with his conspiracy theories.

  ‘Niamh O’Flaherty, do you know how to make a bomb?’ he asked me, looking directly into my eyes.

  ‘Sir, yes, sir! I can assemble an explosive device in under five minutes,’ I said, standing up as Finn fell backwards in shock.

  ‘Ah, piss off,’ he said, as I giggled.

  A few weeks after I’d come home, Mum, Dad, Finn and I were having dinner and I launched into another long-winded monologue about the 1916 Rising. Finn put his fork down noisily and groaned. ‘Niamh, would you please shut up? I can’t listen to this any more. You’re like a record that’s got stuck.’

  ‘Don’t say shut up. It’s rude,’ said Mum.

  ‘Fine. Well, please be quiet then,’ muttered Finn. ‘I can’t take any more of your boring history lessons. You sound like a nutter.’

  ‘But I haven’t got to the bit about Connolly yet,’ I complained.

  ‘He got shot in the chair!’ hissed Finn. ‘We know. You’ve told us a million times. It’s your favourite bit.’

  I noticed no one was jumping to my defence. ‘Mum? Dad?’

  ‘Why don’t we give the history a rest for this evening?’ said Mum. ‘I’d like to eat my dinner without listening to the details of Connolly getting shot again.’

  ‘Dad?’ I asked my chief ally in all things Irish.

  ‘Well, now, if your mother says that’s enough we’ll have to respect her wishes,’ said Dad.

  ‘Can I sing “The Foggy Dew”?’

  ‘I think we might leave that to Uncle Donal. It’s a very grown-up song for a young girl,’ said Dad, alarmed at the thought of his sixteen-y
ear-old belting out rebel songs. It was all right for grown men, but not for young ladies.

  I sulked for the rest of the meal.

  Later, when I was supposed to be in bed, I overheard my parents talking. ‘What in God’s name did your father do to her?’ Dad asked. ‘She’s like some kind of fanatic.’

  ‘You’re the one who insisted on her going to Ireland to learn about her roots. You’re the one who’s always telling her to be proud of where she’s from. All my father did was teach her some history.’

  ‘I only wanted her to understand her heritage. How was I to know she’d take it so much to heart?’ exclaimed Dad.

  ‘Well, I know one thing, she can’t be going round to people’s houses singing “The Foggy Dew”!’ said Mum, sounding genuinely worried. ‘They’ll think we’re a bunch of extremists. You’ll have to stop your brothers singing their rebel songs till she calms down.’

  ‘They’re not rebel songs, they’re historical tales,’ said Dad, sounding insulted.

  ‘I want no more mention of songs, history or anything Irish for the time being. She’s too impressionable and far too passionate. She didn’t lick that off a stone,’ said Mum, pointedly.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with being passionate about your country and your history. But I have to say I’m a bit concerned at how personally she seems to have taken it all. She gets into an awful state when she talks about Connolly getting shot,’ said Dad, sounding perplexed. Clearly my reaction to Granddad Byrne’s indoctrination had surprised even him.

  ‘I’m nipping it in the bud now,’ said Mum. ‘She’s sixteen. It’s not healthy for her to be going around spouting about the Famine and Home Rule. She should be out having fun with her pals. She’s going to the next disco that’s on in that tennis club.’

  ‘Hold on, now,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t want her going down the same road her sister did.’

  ‘She’s seen what a mess Siobhan made. She won’t make the same mistakes. We can’t lock her up because of what her sister did. We’ve been too strict on her, Mick. She needs to have some fun.’

  I perked up. This was great. I could feel Dad wavering. Come on, Mum, don’t stop now.

  ‘We were going to dances at sixteen, and children need to be allowed experience life. We can’t keep her cooped up. She’s a good girl. A bit immature, maybe, but she’s no fool. She won’t let a boy take advantage of her.’

  Immature? Me? I wasn’t too thrilled about that. I was way more mature than most kids my age. And if I was so immature, how come I got dumped with Muireann when no one else was around to babysit?

  ‘It’s not the same now,’ said Dad. ‘The boys here are faster than we were back home. All they want is to get into a girl’s underpants.’

  ‘I seem to remember a certain young man who was keen to get into mine.’ Mum laughed.

  ‘Annie!’

  ‘Well, it’s true. All boys are the same. There’s nothing different about the young lads over here from you and your pals at that age. It’s hormones, pure and simple. Niamh’s going to the next disco and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell her about the birds and the bees, then. She needs to understand that boys can be a bit over-anxious physically.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Mick! Her sister had a baby out of wedlock! She’s not blind – she knows what happens if you have sex.’

  ‘No harm in driving the point home all the same. If you want her to go to discos she needs to be fully informed of what can happen.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll talk to her,’ said Mum, as I cringed. The last thing I wanted was my mother telling me about sex. It was mortifying.

  Luckily for me, I only had to wait a few days until the next disco at the tennis club. I asked if I could go and Dad said I could, but only after Mum had had a ‘chat’ with me.

  Mum looked as uncomfortable as I felt when she came into my bedroom and sat down beside me. She cleared her throat. ‘Niamh, I need to talk to you about boys. The thing is that boys your age are full of hormones that turn them into octopuses.’

  ‘Octopuses?’ I said, confused. I’d thought I was getting the birds-and-bees speech.

  ‘What I mean is that you’ll find their hands are everywhere, pulling at your clothes and that. You need to be very careful not to get carried away and let them do things that aren’t right.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like – putting their hands up your shirt or down your skirt.’

  ‘Do you get pregnant if a boy does that?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, no, but it begins with –’ Mum stopped as I lay back on the bed and hooted. ‘You little brat,’ she said, swatting me with a pillow.

  ‘Come on, Mum.’ I giggled. ‘I’m sixteen, I know how babies are made. And don’t worry – Siobhan and Muireann have put me off sex for life.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Now go and have fun. Innocent fun!’ she said, and tousled my hair before she walked out of the room.

  I rang Sarah, squealing, and told her I was allowed go to the disco. She said she’d call round to pick me up two hours early so we could decide what to wear and analyse what I should say in the unlikely event of a boy asking me to dance. I was in seventh heaven.

  With a couple of inches of Egypt Wonder and half a tube of lipstick on, we headed off to the disco. We ran round the corner where I got changed behind a hedge. Out of sight of my house and Dad’s bionic eye, I took off my jeans and squeezed into a denim mini that Sarah lent me.

  ‘Fabulous,’ she said kindly.

  ‘Not too tight?’ I asked, as I looked down at my protruding stomach.

  ‘No, it’s just right,’ she said, fixing my top so it covered the spare tyre of white flesh falling over the waistband. ‘You’ve got great legs, you should show them off. Now, come on, have a slug of this.’

  She handed me a Soda Stream bottle filled with yellow liquid. I drank and gagged.

  ‘Yuck! What is that?’

  ‘A mixture of different drinks. Vodka, whiskey, gin, sherry and Martini, with some orange juice to make it bearable.’

  ‘It’s gross.’

  ‘I couldn’t take too much out of any of the bottles or my mum would notice, so I just took a little of all of them,’ she said, having a swig and trying not to throw up. ‘Come on, one more sip for courage,’ she said, as I took it and had another mouthful, which I promptly spat out.

  ‘It’s too disgusting,’ I said, watching in awe as Sarah knocked back the rest.

  When we arrived at the disco, she was a bit unsteady on her feet. By the time her boyfriend, Declan, arrived, she was paralytic. He was not impressed by how drunk she was and when she threw up over him, he walked off in disgust, leaving me to clean up the mess.

  I dragged Sarah into the toilet and tried to wipe up the vomit with toilet paper. Then I half carried her to a chair and sat her down while I went to get her a glass of water. One of Declan’s friends was at the bar. ‘Is Sarah all right?’ he asked.

  Normally when a boy spoke to me I froze, but because I was so distracted with trying to sort Sarah out, I answered like a normal person. ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I need to get her some water to sober her up. Her mother will kill her if she arrives home in that state.’

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ he asked.

  ‘Actually, that’d be great. I want to get her outside into the fresh air.’

  He helped me carry Sarah out and placed her gently on the grass, propped up against a tree, where she fell asleep.

  ‘Thanks, I’d never have managed it on my own,’ I said.

  ‘No problem. I’m Teddy, by the way.’

  ‘Hi, I’m Niamh,’ I said, looking at him properly for the first time, now that Sarah was out of vomiting distance. He was cute, if not in an obvious head-turning way. His hair stuck up in a cow’s lick at the front and he had a crooked nose, but he had a lovely smile. And he was English. Could I fraternize with an English boy when I’d seen what his ancestors had done to my country? I looked at him again. He was v
ery cute… Sod it, I couldn’t change history and this was just what we needed: better inter-country relationships.

  ‘How come you’re so together and she’s in such a state?’ he asked.

  ‘Luck,’ I admitted. ‘The drink she made tasted so awful I spat it out. Otherwise there’d be two of us under the tree.’

  He smiled. ‘Declan’s not too happy with being puked over.’

  ‘Judging by how far his tongue is down that other girl’s throat, I’d say he’s got over it,’ I said.

  Teddy laughed. ‘You’re funny,’ he said, as I blushed. ‘I haven’t seen you here before. Where do you go to school?’

  ‘St Bridget’s for holy Catholic girls whose parents want them to become nuns.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Aspiring nuns don’t generally wear minis or hang out with drunken pukers.’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ he said, coming closer and taking my hand.

  ‘Nor do they talk to strange men.’

  ‘How about kissing them?’ he asked.

  ‘Definitely not in the nuns’ handbook,’ I said, as he kissed me. And this time it was fantastic, just like in the movies. Not horrible and slimy like my first snog had been.

  We were mid-flow when I heard a noise behind me. It was Sarah, sobbing. Part of me really wanted to ignore her and keep kissing Teddy, but she was pretty loud so, reluctantly, I stopped and went over to her.

  ‘I want go hooooooome,’ she wailed. ‘I feel awful. What happened?’

  I decided not to tell her about throwing up over her boyfriend and also omitted the fact that he was currently sucking the face off someone else.

  ‘You’re all right. The drink just went to your head. Come on, have some water.’

  ‘I don’t want water, I want to go home.’

  Why couldn’t she have stayed asleep a little longer? Now I’d have to take her home and probably never see the gorgeous Teddy again. Typical! The one night things were going my way my friend had to get as drunk as George Best on a bender.