by Sheila Maher
As soon as my feet sank in the soft shifting sand, I ran ahead to see if ‘our’ spot was free. If another family ever had the audacity to spread their rug in our place, I would give them my most withering look and then try to find the next best location, one that was equidistant from all the other families and would meet with everyone’s approval.
On the beach my priorities were to swim and eat; Catherine (fourteen) wanted to get a tan; Lucy (twelve) wanted to swim too; and Kevin (seven) wanted to stay sand-free. So as soon as our rugs were laid out and Dad had pounded our windbreak into the sand to mark our patch for the day, I stripped off, put on my togs and plunged into the icy Irish Sea.
Regardless of how grey or blue the sky and water were, whether there were exciting waves or just a gentle lilt to the sea, Lucy and I, as the water babies of the family, would walk at a steady pace straight up to our waists and then dive under for several seconds to wet our heads and shoulders – this time was no different. As the first to get wet, we were greeted with a loud cheer when we resurfaced, both satisfaction and pain clearly visible on our faces. Kevin somewhat reluctantly waded in after us; he was not that happy about being forced in for a swim, nor did he want to be associated with Catherine, shivering in her first bikini in two inches of water. Mum’s approach was to glide into the water with a breaststroke that would have been graceful had it not been for a loud spurting of water – looking and sounding as if it had come from a blocked hose – that came out of her mouth on each upward stroke. Dad was the only one to enter the water backwards. He stood with his back to the horizon and the oncoming waves, stretched out his arms like a scarecrow and made big circles with them as he collapsed back into the trustworthy water behind him. We each had our own entry style but Catherine’s was the most tortuous. By the time we had all splashed around, played d-o-n-k-e-y with the beach ball and practised some swimming, Catherine had turned grey in the shallows, goose bumps all over. Bored pleading with her to get under, Dad and Kevin started splashing and chasing her to make her topple and fall in. As she fell, my chattering teeth told me to get out. Catherine ended up swimming alone.
It took a while to get warm again; this I did under the cover of the towelling robe. Mum made one for each of us girls – to protect our modesty. She’ d got a long piece of towelling, threaded elastic around the top and then stitched the ends together. The elastic stayed around my neck as the towel hung down, covering my body from the gaze of onlookers. I liked being naked under that private tent, the air drying the salt water from my skin and the sand from my bottom. I then put on dry togs and reappeared from under my robe, placing my wet togs on the rocks to dry. Dad shook out the rugs and Mum arranged the picnic.
First out were the sandwiches. There were several parcels, each one wrapped in the saved waxed paper of previously eaten loaves. Most popular were the ham sandwiches, made with white bread and a thick layer of butter. There were rounds of cheese sandwiches made with pale slices of the only cheese we knew, Calvita. Protected in its small cardboard box and foil wrapping, an entire block was required for our picnic. There were egg sandwiches, now soggy and misshapen, with a little chopped chive, made with brown bread. Just for Mum, there were the more elegant cheese and apple sandwiches. She offered to share them with us but had no takers. Why did she put a nice crisp apple into a perfectly good cheese sandwich and ruin both of them? Obviously an acquired taste. The sandwiches never ran out no matter how many we ate. But before they were even half eaten, Mum took out some home-made fruit scones, which she had buttered that morning. All of this was washed down with diluted orange drink for us kids, poured from a large Tupperware container into plastic cups. Chilled in the fridge before we left home, this drink was by now tepid, which spoiled its usually enjoyable thirst-quenching properties. Mum and Dad preferred real mugs for their tea, which they made with their flask of hot water, and with tea bags, sugar and milk kept separately in used Coleman’s Mustard jars. No picnic would be complete without a final treat of some kind and ours was usually Mum’s flapjacks or queen cakes.
On many occasions we were joined on the beach by close friends and extended family, those in the know with regards to its location. Aunty Mary from England, and her husband and sons, would join us if they were in Ireland on a visit. Aunty Eileen and my only girl cousin Jean often made it down the treacherous slopes to join us too. So did our neighbours, the Devitts. The ages of the Devitt children were such that a convenient pairing of sorts took place. During these days more chequered rugs were spread out and picnics very similar to our own were devoured. I strained to see what goodies were pulled from their bags and shamelessly hovered nearby in the hope of being offered a spare biscuit or some extra cake.
With more people around, there was more sport to be had once the food was gone. We would run off our lunch by playing a personalised version of cricket or rounders, using a tennis racquet, tennis ball and balled-up jumpers as bases or stumps. The games were dumbed-down to ensure that Kevin and I, as the youngest, stood a chance of hitting the ball. On several occasions Mum or Aunty Mary sprained their ankle running from jumper to jumper around the pitch, bringing the games to an abrupt halt.
I loved the last swim of the day. By four in the afternoon, and after many swims, I’d be used to the cold water, and it didn’t wind me on entry. I stayed in for as long as I could, until Mum shouted for me to get dressed, it was time to go home. Though this really meant it was time for a last mini-picnic before we started the trek back up the slope.
This was when the ‘shop stuff’ came out: a litre and a half of Club Orange, a six pack of Tayto crisps, a family pack of Fox’s Glacier Fruits or Ritchie’s Milky Moos to suck on the hike back to the car. The taste of the sand and the sea were washed away by the bubbles and salt of this picnic, making me forget the sand itching in my knickers and my matted wet hair as I licked cheesy fingers and tipped the crisp packet into my mouth to get all those tiny salty crumbs out of the corners. I loudly sucked on as many boiled sweets as I was given as I trudged my way back along the now busy beach, full of windbreaks and rugs and families, sprawled out, shouting, eating, running, splashing, chasing, and sunbathing. I’d feel momentarily sad when I turned around from my vantage point at the top of the slope and took one last look at the wonderful scene below. I hated leaving the beach behind.
Sometimes we stopped for ice creams on the way home. This treat was Dad’s prerogative – the gift was either bestowed upon us or not, and I never dared to ask outright for an ice cream. The not knowing if we were to stop or not kept me alert in the sticky car, fighting the temptation to doze off. I was anxious not to miss Rathnew – the last place in Wicklow that Dad would stop. Silently my heart would sink if the car kept going past the tiny grocery shop on the right. Sometimes the indicator tick-tocked, the car slowed down and Dad pulled in to the side of the road. A few minutes later he’d return with a delicious selection of ice creams. Gollybar for Mum, Choc Ice for himself, and a mixed bag for us to fight over. There’d be the stale crumbliness of a Brunch, a sweet, tangy Orange Split, a Loop the Loop and another Gollybar. We’ d snatch at them quickly – any one of them was welcome and each had its own attraction. I was always particularly happy to be left with the simple softness of the unadorned Gollybar.
After sucking the wooden stick dry to remove the slightest trace of ice cream, I’d doze off in the car, utterly content. Hot from the sunburn already glowing crimson on my cheeks and shoulders, I’d feel damp and gritty and smell clean and dirty at the same time. So deliciously tired. Only waking as I sensed, somewhere in my core, the familiar swing of the car turning up our road.
Strawberries
Please don’t eat the fruit was the most ineffectual sign that was ever ignored. It hung on the gate at the entrance to the field in Malahide where we went strawberry-picking. It was incredibly naïve of the farmer to assume we would obey it.
I was given a green cardboard box, pointed in the direction of the day’s beds and told to get picking. It took a whi
le to get used to crouching and bending but I’d soon get into my own rhythm: one for the box, one for me, one for the box, one for me. I stopped caring that I was getting muck on my bare knees and in between my toes and under my toenails. Initially, sibling rivalry worked to my parents’ advantage as we each tried to fill our boxes the fastest. I’d thrill when I brushed aside a few leaves to find a cluster of strawberries that previous pickers had missed. Glossy red and luxuriant, they huddled together, as if knowingly hiding from greedy fingers. It took a lot of willpower for me to place any of them in my box.
Mum preferred to pick, and eat, raspberries. She’ d set off into the next field, claiming it was easier on her back. Dad usually kept close to her and left us kids down at ground level with the strawberries. Once our bounty was weighed and paid for, Dad lined the boot of the car with neat rows of boxes, and I spent the long journey home from Malahide wondering if I’d have fresh cream or ice cream with my strawberries after dinner.
But before they could be enjoyed, the fruit had to be weighed, washed, divided, bagged, refrigerated, and left aside to be frozen or preserved. It was a military operation, and one in which I was fully enlisted. Some of the berries were laid out flat on trays and frozen for use in desserts to brighten up dark winter days. A smaller consignment was set aside for immediate consumption, with some to be given to friends and Grandma. The majority were fated to become Mum’s luscious sweet jam.
She’ d take two industrial-sized saucepans, kept solely for this purpose, from the back of a cupboard and fetch from the garage the dozen empty jam jars. Then she weighed mountains of white sugar. With the potato masher, she bashed and squashed our beautiful strawberries into a runny pulp before she turned on the heat and started to cook them. The fierce bubbling and vigorous splashing of the molten lumpy liquid was scary to watch and I’d be ordered to stand well back from the cooker. Mum stirred and waited, stirred and paused, stirred and stared unblinking into the pot, as if expecting a sign to appear on the surface. Now and then she lifted the wooden spoon out and scrutinised the back of that too. I felt tense. I knew there was a lot riding on this. If Mum called it too early and potted the jam before its time, she would pour it all back into the saucepan and start again. She did this once before and never let herself forget it. However, if she waited too long and let the jam overcook, as she had done last summer, there was no way of repairing the damage. All winter long when each jam jar popped open, she would shake her head, heave and sigh, ‘What a waste – what a disaster!’, as we dug our knives into the solid mass of dark red jam and tried to spread it without tearing our bread to pieces. This year Mum got it right. At the end of the afternoon, clustered together on the kitchen table and only distinguishable upon close inspection, were half a dozen jars each of strawberry jam and raspberry jam. The jars still hot to the touch – their colours rich and tantalising.
The best job of the day was dividing the berries that had been spared from the freezer or jam jar into six portions for dessert. I very carefully counted each berry into the six bowls to ensure equity and fairness. I even allowed for size differences and compensated the bowls with the smaller berries. When I finished, I stood back and admired my work – each bowl looked identical, no one could complain of being short-changed. Even so, I knew which bowl I was going to pick. We got to choose between ice cream or fresh cream as an accompaniment. A bit of both was best.
Pasta?
Mum had been working up to it for a long time. She had discussed it with Aunty Mary in London, who did it weekly and loved it; she had cut out and pored over articles about it in the newspaper and women’s magazines; and she had a fair idea of how to go about it. She was ready to try something new. She was gathering courage to tackle the world of Italian cuisine. She was going to make her first spaghetti bolognese.
Used to preparing stews, Mum found the meat sauce easy to make – all the simpler for her as she had to leave out the garlic in order to spare her husband’s flavour-sensitive digestive tract. She took her time with it, double-checking her recipe before adding bacon, a tin of tomatoes, a pinch – or was it a teaspoonful? – of mixed herbs to the pot.
Unfamiliar smells filled the kitchen that Saturday afternoon as Mum delighted herself by being so adventurous. After thirty minutes of simmering, the sauce deepened in colour to a lavish red. I was looking forward to tasting this dinner. My understanding of spaghetti came from Lady and the Tramp – the romantic scene where the two dogs share a bowl of pasta, each starting at opposite ends of a long string of spaghetti until their mouths touch in a sort of kiss. Or from watching Americans on our television screen devour large forkfuls of tightly wound spaghetti. It looked like fun. I wanted to try it.
I didn’t offer any assistance to Mum as she banged around the kitchen. Somehow I knew that when preparing a whole new food group for the first time, she was better left alone. I waited for the call to the table instead. When it came, I was taken aback to see each dinner plate piled high with bolognese sauce atop an even larger mound of white rice. I looked from plate to plate not quite understanding if I was mistaken and rice was indeed pasta.
‘Emmm.’ I hesitated. ‘Is there not meant to be some kind of stringy spaghetti with this?’
‘You’re having rice with it today,’ Mum retorted. ‘It’ll be easier to eat this way.’
Disappointed and robbed of a chance to finally taste pasta, I forked the ‘rice bolognese’ into my mouth. There was no loud sucking required, no messy splashing as threads of pasta, slick with tomato sauce, swung back and stained my clothes, no large mouthfuls that wound expertly around my fork as I twirled it round and round on my plate. Instead, I ate easily and cleanly through my tasty but boring bolognese. Everyone asked for seconds, and Mum was visibly thrilled with herself. Even Dad ate a plateful without complaining of ‘wild’ flavours and potential indigestion. She wondered out loud why she had waited so long to try it.
When I stood up at the end of the meal to leave my plate at the sink, I spotted the problem. Down in the sink, hidden from view, sat the spaghetti. It had not separated during cooking. A congealed snake of pasta, as thick as my arm, curled into itself. As it cooled, it had glued itself firmly to the bottom of Mum’s colander.
From that evening on, when Mum said we were having spaghetti bolognese for dinner, she meant rice. She didn’t like to make such big blunders in the kitchen, and she didn’t like the waste of good food that had to be thrown out, so she let considerable time elapse before she gave pasta a second try.
Salad
Some summer days Mum took a break from the heat of the kitchen and decided that a salad would be ‘nice ’n’ easy’. I liked to help out on salad days. Maybe it was the lack of hot surfaces and bubbling saucepans that made Mum relax and enjoy having a helper in her kitchen.
She prepared all the fancy salads herself: coleslaw, potato salad, and her own personal favourite, celery and apple salad. I was allowed to wash the lettuce and pat it dry on a clean tea towel, then divide it equally into neat piles on six dinner plates. Next, I picked the shells off three hard-boiled eggs, placed each one on the base of the egg-slicer and with great satisfaction guillotined it into seven or eight slices. Mum cut the tomatoes so thinly she only needed two tomatoes between six of us. I arranged an equal amount of egg, tomato and cucumber on each pile of lettuce, with perhaps a tiny bit more on Dad’s. Next up was the meat, usually leftover ham or chicken. Mum divided this herself, as she knew who was to get white or brown meat – she did her best to honour our preferences on leftover days too. Then while she chopped scallions over everyone’s salad, I got the fancy serving tray from the sitting room. Into each of the four smoked-glass dishes fitted in the tray, I spooned Mum’s prepared salads, some beetroot if it was on offer, and any leftover egg and tomato. This was the table’s centrepiece, and with a few serving spoons, we could help ourselves. A basket filled to the brim with home-made brown bread and some white sliced pan was placed alongside it. Heinz Salad Cream was the last to arrive to
the table. It bothered Mum that she hadn’t decanted it into a serving bowl, as her upbringing dictated, but at some point during all of these preparations her enthusiasm waned and she gave in to this shortcut.
‘Your dinner’s getting cold!’ was her witty cry to the table on salad days, and before long there were twelve arms going over and across, reaching, passing, grabbing, spooning, spreading and serving, amidst grunts and mutters of ‘Want some?’, ‘Will I give you a spoon o’ this?’, ‘Can I have a bit o’ that?’. Colourful mounds were built up on each plate, surrounding the meat and lettuce Mum and I had prepared. There wasn’t room on the table for six side plates for buttering our bread, so we shared three between us.
This was a meal that brought out the various personalities of each family member. Kevin chose to make one massive sandwich out of the entire contents of his plate. I looked on affectionately as he tried to get it into his mouth, with most of his filling sliding back onto his plate and down his T-shirt. Dad made numerous white bread sandwiches, each one plain and unadorned – one chicken, one egg, one salad, and so on, until his plate was cleared or until Mum mentioned he might get a heart attack if he ate any more white bread. I shared a side plate with Mum and gaped, incredulous, as she ate thick chunks of butter with some brown bread stuck to the back of it, as accompaniment to her salad. I found it difficult to swallow my lettuce and cucumber, which stuck in my throat no matter how many times I tried to gulp them down. In order to make it easier, I chopped everything on my plate into bite-sized pieces and mixed it all into one homogenous mass. Meat, celery and apple, cucumber, egg, lettuce – even the beetroot that turned the rest of my salad pink – got mixed together. It was a very democratic way of eating my dinner: nothing got priority; everything stood an equal chance of appearing on my fork at any given moment.