The Importance of Being Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  Meanwhile, on the style front, Majella had yet another hair-dye incident this week and is sporting a questionable shade of orange, but she’s styling it out to be fair to her. The sombrero and the maracas earrings will distract from it anyway. She’s looking well. Being in love really suits her. She’s another one who feels a bit farther away from me, even though we’re physically closer than ever. I suppose she has to make space for Pablo. Speaking of Pablo, he’s already beyond in the bar in the Mountrath with John and some of the lads. He’s beside himself with excitement about the Mexican theme, even though Majella has explained to him several times that his abilities as a Spanish translator won’t be called upon and there won’t actually be any Mexicans there, including himself, the Tenerife native. He’s made rumblings about hosting a Tenerife-appreciation evening in Maguire’s in an effort to bring some of his homeland to BGB. It would probably go down well. Sure, half the town has probably been there on holidays, myself included.

  ‘Aisling! Girls! Terry Crowley’s outside.’

  Terry has the seven-seater and is bringing the whole lot of us, Mammy and all and the back-up bags of Doritos, out to the Mountrath for the party. Somehow I doubt Mammy will be staying late enough to head in to the Vortex for a dance, but she’s coming to the function-room part of the evening alright. It’s her first proper family do without Daddy by her side, and I’m a little bit nervous about her being sad, but she’ll have us and Auntie Sheila. Mammy and Sadhbh are particularly good pals, even though they make an odd pair with Sadhbh’s get-up and Mammy’s beige trouser suit with matching accessories. I’m forever reassuring her that, yes, the blue in that scarf is the same blue as the flecks in those trousers. And, yes, those red earrings do pick up the red on her handbag. I have a good eye for matching and I didn’t lick it off a stone. It’s probably why I can pull an outfit together at the drop of a hat. Need to jazz up a black trousers and nice top combo? A pale-blue belt and baby-blue dangly earrings will sort you out.

  Terry Crowley drops us off at the front door of the Mountrath, even getting out to help Mammy down out of the seven-seater. He’d better not get any ideas. He’s a widower himself and I’ve seen him in action with the single older ladies of BGB. Mammy is struggling with the sombrero and her two Good Scarves – one for outerwear and the blue one to keep on for the evening to complement her outfit. She got the trouser suit in Geraldine’s during the week. She only went in for elastic thread and a pair of thermal socks and next thing she knew she was trying on midi skirts and camisoles.

  I was in the Mountrath earlier with Auntie Sheila and my cousin Doireann, hanging up the piñatas and the ‘Olé Happy Birthday’ signs, but walking into the function room now it looks even better than I remember, with the solitary disco ball spinning from the ceiling and the rotating coloured party lights bouncing off it. I immediately spot John, Pablo and co. at the bar. Cillian is at the bar too, looking shiny cheeked in a massive poncho and a stiff pair of bootcut jeans. He must be roasting. Enrique Iglesias is playing as we walk across to them, Majella dancing up to Pablo singing, ‘You can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape my love.’ How are they going to keep it up with Spanish-y sounding songs all night? I suppose there’s always the ‘Macarena’ and ‘Feliz Navidad’. And Chris De Burgh’s ‘Spanish Train’ if they get stuck.

  ‘Aisling, do you know what this is supposed to be?’ Sadhbh asks, approaching with two radioactive-looking pints of yellow liquid topped off with little umbrellas. These must be the margaritas Auntie Sheila had Jocksy Cullen mix up to welcome the party guests, but I must admit they don’t look very appetising. Mammy is trailing behind her, clutching one, with a face that suggests tequila wouldn’t be her thing. Sure, I could have told her that. I’ll have to get her a little Baileys to take the taste out of her mouth.

  ‘I think they’re Mexican?’ I venture, taking a sip. Jesus Christ, my legs nearly go from under me. There must be half a bottle of tequila in it. Sadhbh clocks my reaction and throws an eye to the bar.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I mouth, adjusting my sombrero, which is starting to make my head sweat. ‘West Coast Cooler and a glass of ice. I’ll grab us a table.’

  Majella careens over as ‘Whenever Wherever’ comes on and pulls up a stool with Pablo hot on her heels. He has a carnation between his teeth and his hips are moving in what can only be described as a snake-like fashion. It’s not even 10 p.m.!

  I tell her to mind the table and head over to check on Mammy, who’s sitting in a booth with Sumira Singh from the nursing home and Tessie Daly. The three of them are sharing a bag of Scampi Fries, obviously not keen on the Mexican fare doing the rounds. I’m just about to help myself to a handful when I cop Sadhbh at the bar in conversation with Niamh from Across the Road. My first thought is what the hell is Niamh doing here? She was only home at Christmas. For a minute I suspect Sheila must have sent an invite all the way over to New York for the party, but then I notice the girl standing beside her with the long, blonde hair. She looks vaguely familiar and then I realise who it is. No, it can’t be? Can it?

  I start walking towards them, my feet propelling me forward.

  ‘Niamh?’ I say, and the three of them turn around. Then I see the flash of recognition on the other girl’s face and I realise it is: it’s definitely her.

  ‘Aisling!’ she says, going in for a hug. ‘It’s been – how many? Fifteen years?’

  Natasia was one of those kids Adi Roche had shipped over to Ireland from Chernobyl to get away from all the radiation. Even in primary school, Niamh was a humanitarian and she ended up getting the whole of BGB and Knock into it. We couldn’t take any in because Granny was staying with us, God rest her soul, but loads of other families did. Going into Filan’s was like walking down Main Street Chernobyl. Natasia arrived looking frail and pasty and left a stone heavier with a hurl in her suitcase wearing head to toe Levi’s. Well, the Hattons wouldn’t have had her in anything less. Although she was technically Niamh’s Chernobyl child, the two of us became firm friends and spent many’s a day that summer trying to catch pinkeens in a net and playing marbles.

  ‘Jesus, Natasia, you haven’t changed a bit,’ I gasp as Niamh goes in for the hug too.

  ‘Neither have you,’ she goes. ‘I’m so happy to be back in Ballygobbard. It’s so different now. You have the ATM!’

  ‘I know,’ I say, accepting a West Coast Cooler from Sadhbh. ‘It’s all go here. And you look great! The country air must have suited you. What has you back?’

  ‘I’m a pilot now, with KLM, based mostly in London, but I have been spending more time in Dublin. My boyfriend is based in Ireland a bit. I told Niamh I’d be around and she said she’s in Ireland too for work so here we are!’

  I’m just about to ask her what the craic is like in Chernobyl and whether there’s much radiation around these days when John appears at my side, throwing an arm around my waist, the remains of a pint of margarita in his other hand. He’s been flat out in work the past few weeks doing the final tweaks on some new microchip they’re working on. He’s lead engineer on a project at the plant. Those twelve-hour days just aren’t right, and he always feels the need to leather it home when he has a few days off. I suppose I’ll be on minding duty tonight, so.

  ‘What have you guys heard about that site over by Garbally?’ Niamh shouts over the music. Beside us, John is swaying slightly on his feet.

  ‘Feck all!’ I call back to her. She hardly knows any more than me, does she?

  ‘I actually know the guy who’s bought it to develop – it’s James Matthews.’

  Of course she knows more than me.

  ‘He was in school with Ben,’ Niamh continues. ‘I actually just bumped into him out in the bar.’

  Niamh’s older brother, Ben, went to boarding school, which earned him the local moniker Boarding School Ben. He wasn’t around much when we were younger, and when he started showing up in Maguire’s he stuck out like a sore thumb in his chinos and deck shoes and funny accent. I believe he lives
in Hong Kong these days and has a house with a sauna.

  ‘James was just saying he got the site for a pittance. He’s turning it into a lovely commercial unit with apartments upstairs. It sounds divine for the right occupant.’

  Hmm. Maybe we’ll finally get a Supermac’s.

  John hiccups and rubs his hand up and down my back, smiling lazily. A sure sign he’s about four hundred sheets to the wind. I’m just about to drag him out to the smoking area for a bit of fresh air and a burrito when the unmistakable opening bars of ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’ come on. Suddenly there’s a mad dash to the thronged dancefloor, where Mad Tom is hoisting Cillian up on his shoulders and tearing around the perimeter, his sombrero hanging off him, the cord in real danger of choking him. Loving it all the same, it has to be said.

  Full of Guinness and lethal margaritas, John is absorbed into a sea of check shirts and Wrangler jeans as the local lads come together in one heaving mass of Ricky Martin fans. The gas thing is they don’t have a drop of Latino blood between them, but you’d never think it the way they’re gyrating around the place.

  I realise I’m pissed now too, screaming the lyrics at Sadhbh, who’s happily screaming them back at me, arms in the air. The girls – Sharon, Deirdre and Maeve – appear around us and we all fire our bags on the floor and start shaking what our mammies gave us. I’m surprised to see Natasia twerking but it’s great that she has the mobility all the same. She wouldn’t have been able to do that a few years ago.

  ‘Her lips are devil red and her skin is the colour mocha!’

  I’m aware of Majella and Pablo off to my left, bodies wrapped around each other, swaying in time to the beat. No six inches left for Jesus there.

  ‘She will wear you out, livin’ la vida loca!’

  Even Mammy, Auntie Sheila, Sumira and Tessie are up throwing shapes, Mammy snapping her fingers in time to the beat, which is a pure giveaway that she’s on her third glass. Jesus, I’ll be minding her too if I’m not careful.

  As the song is about to end, the lads, led by Mad Tom, naturally, decide to give Cillian the bumps. You’d think they’d know better after Chief Gittons, father of Baby Chief Gittons, hit the ceiling in Dick’s on the night of his sixtieth, but no. Up he goes and everyone cheers, while Auntie Sheila runs rings around them saying they’ll break his back, begging them to stop. And again, higher this time to louder cheers. And again and again, higher and higher until his nose grazes the disco ball on the thirtieth go.

  ‘Who wants a drink?’ I shout into the crowd, but no one hears me. They’re all too riled up, faces shiny and red. I bend down to retrieve my good Michael Kors, and when I stand up, the crowd in front of me sort of parts and there, standing nonchalant as you like with his back against the bar, looking straight at me, is Piotr.

  Chapter 16

  I haven’t seen him in months. In fact, the last time I saw Piotr was the eve of Daddy’s funeral. He was standing in the kitchen in the house he shared with John and Cillian, tall and cheekboned and ruffled blond and reaching out for me. We had kissed in the silence of my grief and his unmistakable horn. And then I had fled. I never told John – sure, weren’t we on a break? A break-up, or so I had thought. Piotr never told him either, and he moved out shortly afterwards.

  Seeing him standing there now against the bar, we might as well be back in that kitchen. All I can hear is a kind of silent roaring in my ears as I move my arm imperceptibly as if to wave at him. If it was a film I might mouth a ‘hi’ and glide in his direction, smiling gently. But it’s not a film and I haven’t moved an inch I’m that flabbergasted, and the silent roaring is because they’ve stopped the music to bring out the cake.

  Majella slings her arm forcibly around my shoulders, shaking me out of the trance. People close in to the space between me and Piotr, crowding towards the bar and obscuring him momentarily.

  ‘C’mon, Ais,’ she bellows into my ear. ‘Cake time.’

  I allow her to lead me to the other side of the room, where the burrito cake is proudly displayed. Jennifer Ryan makes stunning cakes, it must be said. She has an Instagram page and is flat out attaching Kinder Buenos and Kit Kats to everything from christening cakes to birthday creations. There’s talk of her giving up her full-time job and just doing the baking. Sure, people have gone stone mad for macarons.

  ‘Maj.’ I pull on her arm frantically. ‘Maj, did you know Piotr was coming?’ She doesn’t cop on to what I’m saying at first, a confused look passing over her face. ‘Peter? Who’s Pet–? Oh, Piotr.’

  ‘Shhhh,’ I growl at her.

  We’re surrounded by people crowding around the massive chocolate burrito, which Jennifer still somehow managed to adorn with Ferrero Rocher and M&Ms, which are not the most Mexican of accompaniments. Cillian limps behind it, still recovering from his spill on the dance floor, and Auntie Sheila leads the crowd in a raucous ‘Happy birthday to youuu, happy birthday to youuu!’

  She’s drowned out on the ‘happy birthday, dear Cillian’ bit by ‘You look like a muckerrr … And you smell like one too,’ and if looks could kill, every young man in a ten-mile radius would be six feet under. But her ire is short lived, as Titch Maguire pushes Cillian’s face down into the huge burrito cake, holding him there for a second before releasing him, and up comes Cillian, panting through chocolate buttercream and pockets of Ferrero. A gasp is followed immediately by a roar of approval. Jesus, things are really getting out of hand. Those margaritas have driven the whole place berserk. I pull Majella back out of the crowd, my eyes searching hers for some kind of guidance, as the music fires up again.

  ‘It’s grand,’ she reassures me over the noise of Las Ketchup. ‘Sure, you don’t even have to talk to him and nobody knows. Me, you and Sadhbh, that’s it. And him. He’s not going to say anything. It’s grand,’ she insists again, suddenly mashing her legs together. ‘I’ve to run to the jacks!’ Once Maj has broken the seal there’s no stopping her. She turns on her heel and calls over her shoulder, ‘Find Sadhbh.’

  Find Sadhbh, avoid Piotr. Should be both easy and impossible in this tiny, crowded function room. Maybe Sadhbh’s already gone through to the Vortex with a few of the others, eager to escape the Shakira and the J-Lo? Maybe she’s outside smoking one of her rollies? Maybe she … Thwump.

  ‘Sorry.’ I stumble back, dazed.

  ‘Aisling.’ His voice is warm and kind and a little bit confused. His hands are on my shoulders.

  ‘Piotr. Hi. I didn’t know– I didn’t see– I didn’t know you were coming.’

  ‘How are you?’ His forearms are so close to my face that I can see the golden hairs and smell that smell of his that’s not aftershave or deodorant but just him.

  ‘I’m grand.’ I step back, looking down at my feet. ‘Are you here long?’ I’m desperate to get out of there.

  ‘No, not long. Cillian asked me but I don’t know many people here so I just wanted to call in and say happy birthday.’

  Call in? We’re hardly in Coppers. This is the middle of nowhere, miles from Dublin.

  There’s a tug on my hand and I turn. It’s John, emerging through the throng looking glassy eyed and tousled. His face changes as his eyes focus on Piotr. My heart stops beating for what feels like hours, but he smiles and roars, ‘Look who it is!’ drawing Piotr into a bear hug. ‘How are you, man?’ He’s pumping Piotr’s hand up and down energetically. ‘We miss you in number fifty-seven.’

  Piotr opens his mouth to answer and I jump in, ‘I’m just going to the toilet.’ I’m loath to leave them together, but I can’t bear to stand there with the two of them any longer. John and I were broken up when me and Piotr kissed, and I wasn’t in my right mind, but it’s still a complete hames. They were housemates, like. Friends. I am the worst person in the world. And why does it still feel like there’s nobody in the room except me and Piotr? Shouldn’t I feel like that about John?

  I rush towards the toilets and, in my haste, go flying on a discarded sombrero, straight into the path of some poor unfortunate who
just about manages to keep hold of his pint.

  ‘Christ, I’m sorry,’ I stammer and my hands fly to my cheeks.

  He’s tall, with dark hair just long enough to hold a few messy curls. His eyes are deep brown and his dark stubble is on the verge of beard territory. He doesn’t look familiar and he’s not wearing any Mexican paraphernalia so he must be staying in the hotel. I’d say he didn’t bargain for this carry-on in the bar when he booked in.

  ‘Hey, no worries,’ he says in a soft English accent. Not a Coronation Street accent or even an Eastenders one – more like Hugh Grant’s, wherever he’s from. ‘Are you okay? Where’s the fire?’ He laughs, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. I crane my neck around him to see what John and Piotr are doing but Niamh from Across the Road catches my eye and makes a beeline for me.

  ‘Ais! Ais, this is James – my brother Ben’s friend.’ she says. ‘James, we were just talking about you. Aisling here is my neighbour – she still lives in Ballygobbard, for her sins.’

  ‘Well, I just moved back actual–’

  But Niamh already has me interrupted. ‘I don’t know how you stick it here full-time, Aisling. There isn’t even a decent café for a spot of brunch. I’d go mad.’

  ‘I find it nice enough,’ James says kindly and sticks out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you, Aisling.’

  ‘Hiya, James,’ I say distractedly, trying to get John and Piotr in my sights. ‘I hear you’re developing that site outside BGB? That’s great news.’

  ‘I am. I am. I’m the contractor on the job too so I’m staying here for a few months.’