by Helen Cullen
* * *
In the nine years since Maeve had died, the Moone family had avoided spending Christmas together on the island. Any mention of even the possibility of it happening arose only when immovable plans were already fixed. On this policy of passive aggression, they were resolutely, if silently, bound. So when, in September 2014, Nollaig called each of her siblings to request their presence at home for her birthday that year, she was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The first thing Dillon said was that he wasn’t staying for Christmas. “I’ll swim back to Galway if I have to.”
“I don’t care about Christmas,” she said. “Just promise me you’ll be there for the party.”
This was the big test, she had decided. She had never pushed them to come home before, so if they didn’t show up for her this time—well, they’d better.
After the plans were set, Murtagh announced he, too, had something important to discuss with them while they were all together. Speculation as to what he would say was rife, but he held his counsel. Nollaig, still living with their father, was particularly peeved by her own lack of insider information; Murtagh’s intentions remained unfathomable to her, despite her persistent needling away as she tidied up around him, or sat on the garden wall, her heels beating a rhythm against the stone as she watched him prune the roses.
“You’re not sick, are you? Because you can’t nurse that secret for another three months if you are,” she said one evening as he cursed the Irish Times crossword and grimaced at how cold his coffee had become since he’d started it. “And it would ruin the party, you know?”
“No, love,” he answered, without shifting his gaze from the black-and-white print. “I’m no sicker than any man of fifty-six could expect to be. Now, can you think of a nymph who loves to dance in Trinidad, seven letters, ending in o?”
Nollaig bit her lip while she chased the answer around in her mind. “Calypso? She was a nymph who loved Odysseus, but I don’t know where Trinidad comes in.”
Murtagh tapped the newspaper with his pen in victory.
“Maith an cailin! Good girl! That’s it!”
He folded the newspaper and tucked his fountain pen into the breast pocket of his shirt, after checking once, and then twice, that the lid was secure. Leaning slightly back on the hind legs of his chair, he saw waves of worry ebbing and flowing across his elder daughter’s face.
“I promise I’m fine, Noll. There’s something I need to discuss with you all, and I want everyone to hear it at the same time. And straight from this old horse’s mouth. I know it’s hard on you, but try to be patient.”
“The others don’t believe me. They think I must be in on it and won’t stop interrogating me,” she said, half-heartedly flicking through the Irish Times.
“Well, they will have to be patient, too. Shall we have fish and chips for supper? I have a real hankering on me for a nice piece of mackerel. Would you be tempted?”
“Okay, I’ll go.” She sighed, and messily shuffled the newspaper closed. “You get the fire going while I’m gone.”
Murtagh listened as his daughter wrestled her bicycle down the hallway with more clanging than should have been necessary, and held his breath until the front door slammed behind her. Of all his children, he worried about Nollaig the most. Would Aindí be coming to the party? And his wife?
As much as a father could mean to a daughter, he knew he wasn’t enough. That he should not be enough. And he hoped it wasn’t too late for her. His news would give her a push all right, if the shock didn’t kill her first.
And what about the other three? Would they take it any better?
It was a daily torment to fantasize about what each of their reactions would be; self-flagellation to prepare himself for the worst.
Meeting the war halfway, Maeve would have said, were she here, although if she were still here, there would be nothing for her to comment on. Would there?
Am I really ready for this?
He knew they held a fixed idea of who their father was; could easily picture how the fabric of his life was sewn together, imagine him working in the studio, looking out over the island from his long-suffering leather stool, or nursing a hot whiskey in the snug of Ned’s as he held his toes up to the fire, or fishing off the farthest point on the island that the real fishermen insisted was the Bermuda Triangle for fish and where one would never be caught. He hadn’t proved the islanders wrong yet, but he loved it there, where the island felt adrift and the sky and sea merged into one. Maeve and he had often sat there, melting into one shadow, while the light dissolved. He was sure his children felt confident enough to anticipate his every move.
What will the fallout be when I shatter that illusion?
Will I become a stranger to them? A liar? A coward? A fraud?
In the dusk light, he opened a parcel containing a present he had bought for Nollaig and placed it on Maeve’s old desk. A sewing machine. It was back in fashion, it seemed, to make your own clothes. He wondered what made young women hanker after older lifestyles that were so much more difficult than their own. Maybe they pined for the physical artifacts of life that the digital age had squandered: handwritten letters, vinyl records, that which was made by hand, slowly, with care. Maybe less had proved more, after all, for some.
He heard Nollaig burst back into the hallway, a fog of Aindí O’Shea mingled in her hair that was just tousled on one side. She didn’t meet his eye as she unpacked the fish and chips on the kitchen table and poured them two glasses of milk. He knew it wasn’t his place to comment and swallowed the instinct he always had to tell his daughter to leave that married man be.
“We don’t need plates, do we, Daddy?”
“No, love, they’re grand as they are. Turn on The Late Late Show there, and we’ll have them in front of the fire.”
Normally she objected to eating in the living room, but said nothing as she passed him the two soggy bundles of salt-and-vinegar paper. She followed Murtagh, a pint glass of milk in each hand and a jar of Heinz tomato ketchup tucked under her arm. Father and daughter sat in their usual spots in front of the television, feigning rapt attention at the screen. They were both glad the other could not read their thoughts.
Inis Óg: December 20, 2014
The morning of the party
AT NINE O’CLOCK in the morning, Nollaig was banging on the door of Tigh Ned’s for access, two boxes of decorations at her feet and a denim rucksack covered in embroidery patches on her back with rolls of paper sticking out of the top. Ned didn’t look surprised to see her, even though he answered the door in his undershirt and long johns, his face still covered in shaving foam. He waved her in and tiptoed in his bare feet back behind the bar and through the gray velvet curtain that might have once been cream, and that separated his work and home life.
Nollaig struggled into the back room with her paraphernalia and dropped it on the wooden floor, raising a cloud of dust. With a heavy sigh, she stomped to the bar and found a dustpan and brush, returning to attack the floor with vigor. In truth, she mostly moved dust around, but the effort pleased her. She turned on all the radiators, smug to think of Ned’s face if he knew, and listened in satisfaction as the pipes creaked into awakening for the first time in months. A smell of burning tickled her nose as the dust resting on the pipes singed, so she spritzed the room with jasmine air freshener and hoped for the best. Through a little speaker connected to her smartphone, Janis Ian kept her company while she worked.
Between each dark green window frame she hung one of her homemade posters. They were covered with dozens of photos of herself dating from when she was a baby up until recent times, and scrawled happy-birthday messages, the sort friends made to embarrass each other at parties. She hoped no one would guess she’d written them all herself. It hadn’t been easy to find enough pictures of her looking as if she was having fun. Most of the photos on her phone were selfies, or pictures of Mossy�
�s twins, or her neighbors’ cats, or snapshots of recipes from cookbooks she was too stingy to buy in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway. She stood back to survey her work and nodded in satisfaction. Her eyes lingered over the one photo she had of herself and her mother when she was a baby. Black and white. Herself, a few months old, lying on her belly as she laughed at Maeve, who was pointing at something in the sky.
“Probably calling out clouds to me,” her father had said, but he couldn’t remember the exact day. “There were so many lazy days like that.”
Nollaig smiled.
She couldn’t remember even one.
From the cardboard boxes she lifted pink crystal tealight holders. Pink wasn’t her color, but she’d won a hundred of them in an auction on eBay. From a wedding that was canceled, apparently. Was that bad luck? No, you needed prospects of a wedding first to worry about it being called off. She snaked them across the windowsills, white seashells scattered between them like a trail of breadcrumbs. Only the balloons were left. Inflating them impatiently with a warped bicycle pump, she persevered until a cluster of three was taped to the end of every bench and a solo balloon stuck to the back of all the wooden chairs that lined the walls. She covered the trestle tables at the back with white tablecloths and lined the edges up perfectly so they sat two inches above the ground. Liamie Beag would be bringing in the food at seven. “One pot of vegetable curry for the vegetarians,” he’d said. “And one of beef stew. A few baskets of chips, a couple of plates of salad and plenty of crisps in bowls, and you’re done. I’ll even throw in a few goujons. Happy out.”
“What about a cake?” she’d asked.
“Will you be ordering that yourself now?”
“I will.”
“Chocolate gâteau or carrot cake with icing?”
“Carrot.”
“And the message, Happy Birthday, Nollaig?”
“I suppose so,” she said, her humiliation complete as she handed him euros and watched as they vanished inside his breast pocket like a magic trick.
“I’ll keep it in the pub fridge. Give me a nod when you want it, and I’ll bring it in.”
Nollaig hoped everyone would turn up on time. Hated to think of the food going cold.
She stood at the door of the function room and decided she’d done the best she could. There was no point wondering how different things might have been if her mother had been here. She had spent too long walking that road already, and it only led to more loneliness.
The afternoon
Mossy arrived first, Maya in her Spider-Man costume on his back as together they stepped onto the pier, Kalindi walking behind them, holding Ajay’s hand as he struggled to steer a scooter. Murtagh crouched down, with Packie the koala bear perched on his shoulders, and held his arms out wide enough to enfold two giddy four-year-olds. Kalindi leaned over and kissed him on the top of his head while Mossy assembled all their belongings into a bundle he could carry. He watched the easy way his family embraced his father, so full of the affection now that he, too, remembered receiving as a boy and then had so keenly felt the absence of after his mother died. His father, well, it took his grandchildren to unlock that part of him again. Mossy rubbed his back and Murtagh smiled up at him.
“Failte roimh,” he said. “Welcome home, Son Day.”
“Where’s the birthday girl?”
“She’s in Galway having her hair done. Herself and Sive are getting the next boat. Si flew in last night and stayed with one of the girls from school—Aisling, I think. Was Dillon not coming with you?”
“He was, but he must have missed the boat.” Kalindi’s eyes met Mossy’s, but he shook his head at her. “He’ll probably come on the next one with the girls.”
Murtagh stood up and searched his son’s face.
“He will come, though, won’t he? If he doesn’t, we’ll never hear the end of it. Your sister is up to ninety and—”
Mossy held out his hands to Ajay and Maya, who each grabbed on. Maya, always on the left, Ajay always on the right. “He’ll be here, Dad,” he said. “He promised.”
* * *
Nollaig burst through the door while Murtagh was dishing up pancakes with blueberries and honey to Mossy and his clan. “Sive’s staying at the hotel, can you believe it?” she shouted from the hallway before the front door had even closed. “And she’s brought some eejit from London with her. Luka. If that’s his real name. Twice her age and half the cop-on. He has an asymmetrical haircut. And is wearing black nail polish. Does he think that makes him edgy? Please. He looks like an extra from a Joy Division video.”
Murtagh took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes in an attempt to alleviate the pressure headache that was building behind them. Kalindi stood and fetched another plate from the cupboard, squeezing his shoulders as she passed by. Whenever she looked at him, all she saw was Tomás of the future, although she hoped life would go a lot easier on her husband.
Nollaig strode into the kitchen, and the sight of the twins softened her. “It’s my two best pals,” she said, hugging each in turn, holding her face away at an angle so as not to smudge the makeup Tracy in Brown Thomas had applied so enthusiastically.
“Is it not a bit much?” she had asked Tracy as she puzzled at her own face in the mirror. “I don’t even look like me.”
“You do, doll. It’s just glam you. You can totally pull it off. What are you doing with your hair?”
Nollaig’s face fell. “This is it. I’ve already been to the hairdresser’s. It’s meant to be an updo, but it looks a bit—”
“Scrooged up? Tight? Old-fashioned?” Tracy offered, hand on her hip. “Do you mind if I...?”
Nollaig nodded.
Tracy unpicked all the hairpins holding Nollaig’s do together, and told her to turn her head upside down and give it a shake. Starting at the nape of her neck, Tracy teased out the curls and backcombed them to add volume. “Now, give it another good shake.”
When Nollaig looked in the mirror, she screamed. “It’s massive—what have you done? I’ve spent the last thirty years trying to stop my hair looking like this.”
“Hon, that’s where you’ve been going wrong. Your hair is bleedin’ deadly. It’s time to set it free. You’re leaving here a new woman.”
Nollaig raised her hand to touch her new do, but Tracy slapped her hand away.
“Don’t you dare try to flatten it. Trust me. You look a picture.”
“A picture of what?” Nollaig smiled at herself self-consciously in the mirror. She did look different, and that had to be a good thing, didn’t it? She slipped Tracy an extra ten euros before she left, stealing another glance at her reflection in the window on the way out.
Kalindi walked around the table to hug her sister-in-law. “Noll, you look like a film star. Where did you get all that hair from?”
Nollaig laughed and blushed as she kissed the air between their faces. “I felt like a change. Hiya, Moss. Where’s Dillon?”
The atmosphere shifted as she glanced around the table.
“He’s not here yet. Come here, sis, and give your little brother a hug. Should we give you your presents now or at the party?”
“Where is he? Have you tried his mobile? There’s only one ferry left and, even if he catches that, he’ll be late. Did you text him?”
She pulled out her mobile phone and tried to call him, but it wouldn’t connect.
“His phone’s off, or out of coverage,” Mossy explained, “but don’t worry about him. He knows he has to be here.”
“Has to? Does he not want to? It’s not like I’m dragging him here kicking and screaming.”
Mossy looked away and spooned another pile of blueberries on his plate. Nollaig stared at him, red lipstick staining her teeth. “Is that it? You’re all here under duress?”
Kalindi pulled out the kitchen chair beside her and lowered Nollaig into it by
the elbow.
“Of course not,” she said. “You know Dillon finds it hard to come home at this time of year.”
“At any time of year,” Murtagh mumbled under his breath, still reeling from the shock of Nollaig’s makeover and the news of Sive’s guest. He turned to his elder daughter. “When you say twice her age, you’re exaggerating, I presume?” She slammed a silver spoon against the table, where it bounced into the sugar bowl with a clatter.
“Dad, can you focus? I’m worried about Dillon.”
“I’m sorry, love. Listen, don’t upset yourself. Tell me, is Sive coming home before the party?”
Nollaig scraped the hind legs of her chair across the floor tiles and stormed out of the room. While Kalindi folded her napkin into a perfect square, she shook her head at the two men watching Nollaig leave. “I’ll go,” she said. “Tomás, can you give these two their bath and try to get them settled down a bit before the sitter gets here? We’ll never get out of the house later otherwise.”
“I will,” he said. “Thanks, Kal. Go work your magic.”
After she left, father and son sat together eating cold pancakes for a few minutes longer before Mossy started to navigate the twins toward the downstairs bathroom.
“Do you need any help at all? Shall I fill the tub?” Murtagh asked.
“I’m grand, Dad, we’ll—” Mossy looked up and saw his father properly for what felt like the first time in years. When had he turned so gray? “Actually, that would be brilliant. We’ll be there in a sec.”
Murtagh jumped up and rushed to gather warm towels from the closet on his way to the bathroom. Mossy heard him humming a tune over the sound of the water gushing into the tub, but he didn’t know the song.
It sounded like a happy one.
The evening
Nollaig wasn’t much of a drinker but decided that a few glasses of prosecco would help to steady her nerves and lift her spirits. She had barely allowed herself to celebrate a birthday at all since her mother had died, but she needed to face her third decade with a different attitude. She wasn’t sure what her new philosophy would be yet, or what she might have in her, but wanted to at least take part in the world a bit more. Not by abandoning her father, though; that was inconceivable; she was looking more for something to add on than to take away.