The Importance of Being Aisling

by Emer McLysaght

  ‘Hi.’ He turns his head on the pillow and smiles at me.

  ‘Hiya. How are you now?’ I babble and squirm, still trying to lie perfectly still and looking straight ahead at the ceiling. Where the bloody blazes are my knickers? Is there a top within reaching distance, I wonder? Himself – Andrew? Alan? Something like that – leans in and gives me a quick squeeze with the arm that’s still lying over me and then rolls onto his back, groaning. ‘Wow, that was some … craic we had last night. My head kills.’ He has a slow American drawl.

  Crack?! No, craic. He means craic, surely.

  I grab my chance and shuffle sideways out of the bed, swinging my legs onto the floor and trying but failing to cover most of myself with the sheet. In the films they’d nearly have a debs dress made out of it, hemmed and all, and glide gracefully out of the room. As I sit up my brain ricochets off the side of my skull. Is this how I’m going to die? Of a hangover in a Las Vegas hotel room with Andrew/Alan? How will Mammy explain it to the neighbours? I contemplate lying back down, but a combination of a desperate need for rehydration and a ferocious shame over what I now remember vividly as my first ever one-night stand propels me out of the bed. I give the sheet a wild hard tug and it dislodges itself from under Andrew/Alan’s groin area. He seems to be sound asleep again, his arm thrown over his eyes.

  Wrapping the sheet around me twice and hoofing a bit over my shoulders for added coverage, I pad towards the door, slipping and sliding on multiple bottles and tripping on what I can only assume is my Jeans and Nice Top, and my knickers, and whatever Andrew/Alan was wearing. A red T-shirt, I think. I try to ignore the rustling of condom wrappers as the sheet drags them along.

  I open the door a crack and peer out, expecting silence and a clear path to the little kitchen. It’s probably the crack of dawn.

  ‘Oh, hello, sunshine!’ calls Sadhbh immediately, turning around on the couch. Don is beside her and gives me a little wave, grinning. Majella is on an armchair, sunglasses on, pyjama top on backwards, water glass held to her temple. I dither at the doorway, and Sadhbh stage-whispers, ‘Well, out you come, let Antony sleep.’ Antony! I was close.

  ‘Er, how is everyone?’ I say shakily, sinking down onto the end of couch, tucking the sheet in around me. ‘Any more of that water going, Majella?’

  ‘I’ll get it.’ Don leaps up and heads for the kitchen, making a big show of clattering around with glasses and taps.

  Sadhbh leans in. ‘Well. How are you? Sore head? I’m not surprised!’ She’s smiling.

  ‘Are ye not dying as well?’ I say defensively. ‘We were all out!’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re the one who was back here raiding both of our mini bars and laughing and screeching half the night. You were having the best time.’

  Christ. The bottles on the floor. The mini-bar. The bill!

  ‘I’m dying.’ Majella raises her hand limply. ‘But I’m always dying.’ This is true – Majella’s hangovers are legendary. I once saw her drink a carton of orange juice in one go and then immediately vomit it back up, like a fluorescent Wavin pipe.

  Don emerges from the kitchen and hands me a glass of ice-cold water. I gulp it down like my life depends on it. It kind of does, to be quite honest. I’d kill for a million ice pops, or a lump of pineapple or something. I’m usually a beige carbs woman when it comes to hangover food, but this is next level. I suddenly understand why Elaine and Sadhbh reach for the grapefruit when they’re dying. The whole time I thought they were just punishing themselves.

  ‘What time is it?’ I say suddenly.

  ‘Half twelve,’ groans Majella. ‘Can I just sleep all day?’

  Half twelve. The hotel breakfast. I’ve missed it. For the first time in my life I’ve missed it. Maybe there’ll still be a bit of toast going or a glass of orange juice? No, not orange juice. No Wavin pipes for me. Apple juice, maybe. I gather up the sheet and bustle back towards the room, calling over my shoulder, ‘If we rush we might get the last bit of breakfast.’

  Majella laughs tentatively, rubbing her head, and reaches for a menu beside her. ‘This is Vegas, Aisling, the breakfasts come to you.’

  I’ve never ordered room service in my life. God only knows what you might be missing down at the buffet. But right there at the very top of the menu it says, ‘Fruit Bowl: a selection of fresh, tropical delights served ice cold.’ There’s no price beside it, or beside anything really, but the thought of someone bringing me a cascade of strawberries and pineapple right now is too good to resist. ‘I’ll have the fruit bowl.’ I toss the menu back to Majella, who throws it at Sadhbh, groaning, ‘Toast. All the toast they have.’

  Sadhbh grins and nods towards the bedroom door. ‘Does Antony want anything? Ask him there, Aisling.’

  He jerks awake as I gently close the bedroom door behind me, turning over to lie on his stomach. Mercifully, he’s located another sheet.

  ‘Heyyy, Ashlinn.’ He turns his head on the pillow and raises his arm about half a foot. He’s dying too, obviously.

  ‘It’s Ais–’ Never mind. Doesn’t matter. This must be what Saoirse Ronan feels like all the time, living with the scourge of an Irish name abroad. Maireads, Róisíns, Gráinnes, Eimears, Caoimhes. We’re all one big put-upon gang. And what about the Pádraigs and Caoimhíns and Seosamhs?

  I sit on the edge of the bed and look at Antony over my shoulder. He smiles. What a smile. I remember seeing it a lot last night as we danced and talked and – yes, it’s coming back to me now – swigged from bottles dancing around this very room. He stretches out the arm closest to me.

  ‘Morning snuggle?’

  I hesitate, but he leans across and trails a finger up and down my back, inching the sheet down. Feck it.

  Chapter 22

  The screaming is mortifying. Antony and Don can definitely hear it as they close the door to suite 353 of the MGM Grand. I’d say the whole floor can hear it.

  ‘Well? Are you a new woman?’ Majella is about two inches from my face as I collapse back onto the couch. The fruit bowl has been delivered, thanks be to Jesus. Although you wouldn’t want to be starving. There’s about four grapes, a suggestion of pineapple and a suspiciously large helping of chopped up apple. And don’t get me started on the melon. A filler fruit if ever there was one.

  ‘Will you stop?’ My cheeks are burning for about the sixtieth time in twenty-four hours. I feel fizzy inside. I feel a bit like cackling out the window or running a 10k or something. Although I’ve done the Mini Marathon several times and 10k is no laughing matter. One year I nearly had to give up out by UCD. It was fierce warm and people were dropping like flies. Majella had been out the night before and an old lady offered her a go in her wheelchair at one stage. She took it and all.

  Anyway, I am a bit like a new woman. I’ve been with John so long and only one other fella before him. Antony’s been throwing me around the bed – and the floor, I tried not to count the bottles while I was down there – for the past hour, and I didn’t even care that the girls knew what we were up to. Although, emerging from the bedroom, this time clad in my Winnie the Pooh pyjamas rather than the sheet, all I could look at was the floor. And then he went in for the goodbye kiss. ‘Goodbye, Irish. Don’t be a stranger.’ I thought Sadhbh and Majella were going to explode. I decide to just give in to their quizzing and get it over and done with.

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Twice, I think’

  ‘Was one of them in the shower? There was definitely something going on in the shower last night.’

  ‘Oh. Three times then, maybe.’

  Pause for screaming.

  ‘Is he nice?’

  ‘Sooo nice. We were talking about work and life and Daddy and everything.’

  Pause for aaahing.

  ‘What was he saying?’

  ‘Ah, this and that. Did you know he set up his own business when he lost his job? He was telling me all about it. He was saying … he was saying would I not do something like that. I think he thinks I own a zoo, thou
gh. Something was lost in translation about the farm and that one summer we had llamas. Still, though, maybe he’s right? If there was something I was good at or passionate about, like. Antony managed it.’

  ‘And look at him now,’ Sadhbh interjects. ‘Don says he’s one of the best people he’s ever worked with. His small label was bought by the one taking on The Peigs. Antony is really high up.’

  Majella nudges me. ‘Fair play, girl. He had his eye on you all night. I think it was your Britney moves.’

  Jesus. Champagne and gin and ‘Slave 4 U’. Never again.

  ‘It’s a shame he’s going back to LA today.’ Sadhbh looks dejected. But it’s not Antony she’s most concerned about, I’d say.

  ‘And it’s a shame Don’s going back too. But he’ll be home soon, right?’

  ‘Another month or so. Yeah, I’ll miss him. Isn’t he a dote?’

  Majella and I both agree that Don is a dote. Who knew a man with a nose ring and a face like a scruffy angel would be so good at knowing all the words to ‘Never Ever’, the talking bit and all. He’s like one of us. No hint of airs and graces about him, despite having Bono’s number in his phone. (I know this because Majella checked.)

  ‘So, are you and Antony going to stay in touch?’ Majella asks slyly.

  ‘I dunno. Maybe we’ll be Facebook friends. I don’t really care, to be honest.’ I’ve never been breezier. Or felt breezier. The girls fall around the place squealing again, Majella screaming that I’m the ‘one-night-stand queen’. I feel like Madonna when she wrote that book.

  It’s nearly six o’clock by the time we make it out of the hotel room. Usually by this time in a city break you’d have a loop of the open-top bus done, seven of the fifteen things with pictures beside them in the guidebook seen, a lunch eaten (after scrutinising several different window menus and doing the euro conversions in your head if necessary), the bits from the hotel breakfast buffet rationed out over the day, and you’d be starting to surf window menus for a bit of dinner. I’ve been in Las Vegas nearly twenty-four hours and I haven’t even stepped outside. So much for my dream of visiting one of those outlet malls for a half-price Gap hoodie and some Ralph Lauren towels for Mammy. Majella told me that you can come to Vegas and never see the light of day. I thought she was having me on, but walking through the casino attached to the hotel now it’s impossible to tell what time it is at all. It’s just bars and restaurants and casino as far as the eye can see. I’d say I’d be glad of it in the height of summer – five minutes in that Vegas sun and I’d be like a boiled ham. Even today I’ve slathered on the factor 50. Eighteen degrees can be very deceptive, even this close to sunset.

  Stepping out into the fading light we all reel a bit and fumble for our sunglasses. We have truly poisoned ourselves. Majella in particular is looking very green. ‘We’ll just go down and look at the Bellagio and then have a bit of dinner,’ Sadhbh reassures me. I might be hungover but I’m still in tourist mode. A dancing fountain? Right up my street.

  There’s a bus that goes down the Strip so we all limp on, with Majella hovering her head as close to the tiny window as she can. Sadhbh’s doing some mooning of her own. Her phone is buzzing away, and she’s giving us the odd update on the boys’ hangover and their progress in the airport. ‘Antony says hi,’ she directs at me coyly. I blush again at the thought of him emerging from under the sheet earlier to say ‘hi’ from between my thighs. The carry-on of him. With a jolt, I realise I haven’t thought of John since arriving in Vegas and instantly feel guilty. I wasn’t long hopping into bed with someone, was I? Maybe he’s right about me being a–

  ‘What’s up with you, bird?’ Majella gives me a half-hearted nudge as the bus crawls along the Strip. I was so lost in thought I wasn’t even using the opportunity to sightsee. Hotels rise like skyscrapers on either side, and there’s the Eiffel Tower, and a pyramid, and a man in his knickers. Americans are gas.

  ‘Ah, I’m just feeling a bit guilty, about John and Antony and–’

  Majella grabs my arm now. ‘Don’t you dare. You’re free and single and entitled to your one-night stand. Lads wouldn’t think twice about it. They’d be following their mickeys at the first hint of the glad eye. Now, here we are.’ She stands up as the bus bulls to a stop and points through the window. Following her finger I see a giant pool of water. No dancing shower heads just yet. My barely touched guidebook tells me it goes every half hour and we’re just in time. We stumble from the bus and Sadhbh spots a vantage spot on a step by a wall so we plant ourselves there, ready for the action.

  I wasn’t ready for the opening strains of ‘Time to Say Goodbye’. Majella briefly thought it was Celine Dion herself singing from inside the fountain but soon caught a hold of herself. Daddy loved this song. He used to pretend to be the blind lad singing it around the kitchen, even the Italian bits. I’m caught off guard with tears in my eyes as the water flings itself this way and that, like fireworks. The hangover probably isn’t helping, to be fair. Daddy would have loved this. Him and Mammy had great plans for travelling here and there, if they ever managed to get a long enough break from the farm. I reach into my bag and pull out my wallet, eager to see his face smiling up at me from his memorial card, tucked in with the Christmas fifty eur– Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

  I must have said some of those nos out loud because Sadhbh grabs me by the arm. ‘What? What, Aisling?’

  ‘Daddy’s €50. It’s gone.’

  Sadhbh looks confused but Majella catches on immediately. ‘Oh no, Ais. Are you sure?’ She mutters to Sadhbh. ‘He gave it to her for Christmas, in the card.’

  Sadhbh’s face falls. ‘Oh no, Ais. It must be there somewhere.’

  But it’s not. I must have spent it. Last night, probably. I search my brain for a memory of pulling it out. In that club, maybe? At the blackjack table? Were my suspicions correct and it turns out all of those ‘free as long as you’re gambling’ drinks were not free at all? It did seem too good to be true. But there’s nothing jogging my memory. God only knows where it’s gone. Dejected, I turn away from the Bellagio as Celine’s warbling comes to a close. Sadhbh plants an arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. ‘Let’s get some dinner. We’ll feel better then.’

  ****

  ‘Is that mad hot, now?’

  The waitress looks at Majella like she has ten heads. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, ma’am.’

  ‘Is it mad hot? Mad spicy, like?’

  ‘Ní thuigeann sí,’ I mumble at Majella, delighted to get the use of my primary school Irish. It’s a real feather in your cap when you’re abroad, although when Majella did her J1 in Chicago years ago she was gossiping like mad about a fine thing at the table next to her, and next thing he turns around and says, ‘Well, girls?’ in the thickest Drogheda accent she’d ever heard. Her knees still go funny thinking about it to this day.

  ‘Ní thuigeann sí “mad hot”.’ She doesn’t understand ‘mad hot’. Majella’s Irish was never the strongest.

  ‘Ah, sorry.’ Majella finally cottons on and repeats herself slowly. ‘This chilli, is it very spicy?’

  We’ve settled for dinner in a restaurant in our own hotel. We all badly need our beds so we might as well be as close to them as possible. The thought of chilli turns my stomach, but the all-day brunch menu is calling to me. Never thought I’d be actively seeking out eggs, bacon and smashed avocado but it’s the closest thing to a big dirty fry this place has.

  ‘I’ll have the brunch. Extra rashers … er, bacon,’ I call to the waitress over Sadhbh recounting her memories of all the dancing from last night.

  ‘She had the glass in each hand and her arse was nearly touching the floor each time.’ She’s talking about me. No wonder my thighs are in bits. I thought it was maybe from the shower. Majella is creasing herself laughing and I join in, and it does me good. It was only €50 and I still have Daddy’s card. There’s no point getting into a tizz about it. Majella’s phone goes – Pablo again, no doubt – and she excuses hers
elf to go off and make moony faces at him. The waitress brings our vats of Diet Coke and reminds us about the free refills. Sounds like another swizz but, Jesus, isn’t America brilliant all the same?

  ‘The €50 aside, are you having fun?’ Sadhbh inquires.

  ‘I am. I really am. The thought of going home, though.’ We have another day and night in Vegas, but I’m already getting that Sunday-night feeling about returning home. No job to go back to. Worries about Mammy and the farm. Life without John.

  ‘Stop! Don’t even think about it,’ Sadhbh demands. ‘Let’s stay positive, positive, positive.’

  ‘Did you know … An–’ I struggle to get his name out without blushing, ‘Antony just bought his mother a house? Just bought it for her, outright.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that lovely?’ Sadhbh teases. ‘And any excuse to bring up his name, what?’

  ‘No!’ Feck her anyway. I’ll never hear the end of this. ‘Maybe I should think about opening my own business. I’ve got the bit of redundancy money. I love nothing more than organising and planning. I’ve no clue where my career or whatever is going from here. Why couldn’t I set something up and run it? Maybe I could help Mammy out too.’

  ‘Alright, you have me convinced. So what would this business be, then?’

  I pause. It’s a cracked idea that I’ve only really just formulated in the past ten minutes, addled by the hangover.

  ‘I was thinking a café. In BGB. I suppose there’s never been much call for it when you can get coffee in Filan’s, but there are more and more Dubs arriving down all the time. And the Garden Centre is heaving with people wanting scones the size of their heads. I feel like I could get in on some of that action if I got the right little spot.’

  Sadhbh’s face looks encouraging, so I keep going.

  ‘If I’m going to be staying in BGB, why not make the most of it? And why not show the best it has to offer? All that lovely local produce. The finest of everything on our doorstep. Give people a reason to come and maybe a reason to stay.’