Mam says we’ll think about it, and everyone goes ballistic. Susan can’t believe that I’m younger than her and I’m getting to go out on a Sunday night, and the last night before school and everything. Claire pipes up and demands to be allowed to invite Brenda Joyce around, since I’m going to a party. Sarah mutters that Saidhbh is a tart, Fiona barks back that it takes one to know one, Dolly, meaning Dolly Parton, and Siobhan says Provo-Tart to boot. Even Dad throws in his tuppence worth with something about the smell of booze and me becoming an alkie before my time, as if there is a proper age to become an alkie.
In school, when the teachers find out that I have five sisters, all older than me, they say that I must be so spoilt, being the only boy. Centre of attention. Apple of everyone’s eye. Man of the house. Little Lord what’s his name. I look around the table at all the angry girly faces snapping at me like the hungry crocodiles in
Live and Let Die
and I think, Bollocks to that.
Mam’s already had enough of the arguing and of everyone moaning about me going to Saidhbh Donohue’s party. She hasn’t been slaving over a hot stove all day to have her Sunday roast ruined by a pack of bickering brats.
Nice melon balls, didn’t you think, Matt? she says, deciding to make it her mission to bring Dad out of his daily exhaustion and post-paper slump. Saving your presence.
She knows that if she starts with him, there’s a good chance that the rest will follow.
Dad says, Nice, while looking down at his empty plate.
Matt! Mam says sharply. A bit of eye-contact wouldn’t go astray!
Dad lifts his head up and says, Nice melon balls, Devida.
She’s smiling at him, beaming widely, full on, doing her best to bring him back to life. He notices this, so he gives her a polite half-smile in return.
She pounces on it.
Look at that, girls! It smiles. The beast smiles! Oh, I made a great choice there, marrying such a smiler. Praise the Lord, lucky me, what a happy man I married!
Now, this is a dangerous game she’s playing, and we all know it. It’s like she’s messing with nitro. Coz it can either bring him into the glory of wildcard happiness, or it can send him over the edge and he’ll storm out and go over to The Downs or out for a long drive and not come back until it’s night and we’re all in bed, wide awake.
But this time the gamble works.
And I got permanent rays of sunshine with you!! he says, a wicked grin beginning to break over his face. The fastest floozy in all of the bog!
Oh, Matt, you’re awful! Mam says, mission accomplished, standing up and going over to the oven to pull out a freshly spitting chicken the size of an elephant.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, she says, continuing it on, like panto.
What’s a floozy? says Susan, even though she knows what it is, coz Fiona’s always calling Sarah one.
Will I tell ‘em about the knocks? says Dad to Mam, but winking at us as the chicken hits the table in front of him with a carving knife and carving fork rammed into its chest.
Oh, now, none of your knocks, Mam protests.
Yeah, the knocks, says Siobhan, tell us about the knocks!
It was when your mam brought fellas back to the house in Ballaghaderreen, says Dad, as if he’s presenting
Jackanory
. If it was late at night they were never allowed inside the building because there’d be no one up to keep everything above board. He winks to us all when he says this.
So, your mam would chat to her fellas outside the house, by the door, which was right below her father’s bedroom. And if the conversation ever stopped, which meant that things between your mam and the fellas were getting just a little bit too quiet for their own good, her father’d give his window pane a decent few knocks to shake things up and get the conversations flowing again. You see, a right little bogwoman floozy, he says, his face beaming. A floozy!
Those were more innocent times, says Mam, dropping the sprouts, parsnips and spuds down on to the table while we all imagine her getting a feel under Grandad’s window, like Sarah at Blinkers last night.
Speaking of which, says Dad, seemingly back in wildcard mode, firing on all cylinders while jabbing away at the elephant chicken in front of him, Jahear the one about the woman breastfeeding on the bus?
Oh, Matt, says Mam, that’s as old as the hills!
Dad ignores her and continues. The baby’s screaming, it won’t take any of its mammy’s milk and so she says, Ah shut up or I’ll give it to the bus conductor!
Mam and Dad both burst out laughing at this. It’s not that they think it’s the best thing ever, it’s more like it’s a joke from when they were young, when they first started courting, and that’s why they like it.
Or the blind man, says Mam, serving out eight separate portions of the three different veg, who comes to the convent,
knocks on the door and says, It’s the blind man here! And the nun, who’s nude from the shower, opens the door and says, Can I help you, my child? And he says, Nice boobs, wheredya want the blinds?
They both hoot with laughter at this one, and even though Sarah folds her arms to cover up her braless top, it kind of becomes infectious. I see Fiona’s shoulder jigging about beside me. I hear her giggles, and find myself joining in too. Just watching Mam and Dad red-faced and hooting together is enough to get the giggles going.
Or the youngfella, says Dad, with the marks down his face!
They burst out laughing and Dad even has to stop carving now. He’s kind of snotting into the chicken with laughter and can’t finish the joke. Claire, Susan and Siobhan are giggling like mad too, and even Sarah is smiling at this stage.
You’re both just so crude, she says, snorting to herself.
The doctor asks him what happened to his face, and he says that it’s from drinking milk!
Dad’s laughing like mad, and has got the joke all wrong, but he makes his best stab at it.
What do you mean, drinking milk? asks the doctor. Well, on my school lunchbreak I go up to the railings where I get a drink of milk from me mammy outside!
Dad laughs again, and this time he explains, with light tears on his lids, She’s been breastfeeding him! And the lines down his face are from leaning into the railings to get a mouthful!
They laugh away, about the joke itself and about old times. Sarah joins in with a recent gag of her own, pulling the skin on her face back tightly from the cheeks and saying, Mammy mammy I think you tied my pigtails too tight!
Claire says, pretending to be a dad, How did you get that green line through your hair, son? Then she says, pretending to be the son too, I dunno, while rubbing her hand from her nose
right over the top of her head, like she’s wiping an imaginary load of snot into her hair, unknown to herself.
Mam has done her job well. And for a while there, right at the table, in front of chicken, veg and a bucket of gravy, we’re all laughing at the same time. But we’re not laughing coz the jokes are funny. We’re laughing coz we’re laughing.
And if I could get my hands on Benny Hill’s magic remote control I’d use it right there and then. I’d press pause, and freeze us all for ever, just as we are, sitting round the table, giggling and shaking, and cracking crap jokes, and happy to be there, and giving each other quiet yet monumental looks of love.
And then I’d smash it.
The rest of the meal goes smooth as eggs, and Mam’s so happy that she even allows Sarah to put some ELO on in the background. There’s lots of chat during the main course. About Pat Shine’s new skin-tight trousers which’ll ruin his chances of having babies. About how the town of Navan is actually called a palindrome, which means it can be written forwards and backwards. And about the life and death of Princess Grace. The dessert pavlova comes and goes, and all the while we get Mam and Dad’s sunburnt honeymoon, Claire’s Inter Cert, Brenda Joyce’s back garden, and why teachers, like Taighdhg Donohue, are all cute whores because they get so much holidays and are really well paid but always complain about having to work hard.
There’s a lull at the end and, feeling that the coast is definitely clear by now, I lean over to Mam and say, dead seriously, Can I go to the party? Just for a bit.
Fiona winks at Mam and says, Go on, Mam, last chance to see his love before school separates them for good.
Shut up, I say, pucking her in the arm.
I look across the table of empty pavlova bowls and see Sarah reaching into the back pocket of her mini and pulling out twenty
Rothmans. She passes one to Siobhan, offers one to Dad, who accepts, and they all light up and start puffing away, like three disco smoke machines in the corner of the room.
Mam rubs me on the head and says, All right, loverboy, you’re on.
I lean back in my chair and have to stop myself from going red with excitement. I let my shoulders drop, take a deep breath of hot kitchen air and gulp down the comforting choke of thick tobacco smoke circling the room.
Mam gets Saidhbh’s number from Fiona and rings Mr Donohue just to make sure that everything’s above board. I’m dead embarrassed but it’s worth it. I hear Mam being polite first, saying that she heard he was having a party and that I’d got it into my head that I was invited. She giggles for a bit, like she’s sharing a private joke with Mr Donohue, and then says, Of course, I will indeed send the wee fella down to you. That means me. She giggles some more and says thanks a million but sadly she can’t, too many uniforms to iron and sandwiches to prepare. Mr Donohue has obviously invited her too, but she’s said no. Lucky.
She puts down the phone and I leap out from my eavesdropping place at the top of the stairs and say, Well?
Kick-off’s at seven, she says, before adding with a wink, Bring your own Cidona.
I’m normally not that fussy about clothes, but when it comes to this party I really want to knock ‘em all dead. I want to walk into the room, like a cowboy coming into the smoky saloon through the swing doors, and have everyone stop talking and stop playing the piano and just look at me and go hushed. So, after my shower, Fiona and me sit down with Olivia Newton-John playing on the boombox, and me still in my towel, and we decide what to wear.
All the clothes I own in the world are spread out on my bed. I feel good choosing my outfit with Fiona because she knows Saidhbh’s tastes and can tell me what to wear better than anyone. I never actually say, Would Saidhbh like me in this? But Fiona gets the message.
I have four pairs of trousers, not including the old stuff that doesn’t fit me. Two pairs of blue jeans, a pair of black slacks for Mass and school, and a pair of grey denims with black herringbone stitching that I wore on Easter Sunday and for Fiona’s seventeenth barbecue. I had a pair of white denims too, but Mam made me take them back to Penny’s for a refund coz they were too tight. I told her that they were drainpipes and they were supposed to be that way, but when I walked into the kitchen with them on Dad just went spare and nearly killed me. He shot out of his seat and told me to take them off right away. I said no way and fuck sake, and then ran out of the room half crying. He chased me upstairs with the bamboo cane, hit me on the arse three times, then grabbed me by the waist and practically ripped the trousers off me, saying that no son of his was going to be seen walking around The Rise like a gombeen in sprayed-on trousers.
I cried for ages after that, and wouldn’t come downstairs. When I told Fiona about it she said that Dad was jealous, and he wanted me to look like a square because that’s what he was like when he was a fella.
Olivia Newton-John sings, ‘Physical, I wanna get physical,’ and Fiona and me both agree that I should wear the herrings. Dead classy. I’ve already decided outright that I’m wearing my black slip-ons with grey socks to match the herrings, so all that remains is the shirt. I’m rooting through my shirts – seven of them, three flowery, one plain yellow, one pink, one blue, and a school white – when Fiona says that she has just the thing for me. She reaches into her side of the wardrobe and pulls out her grey grandad shirt. She says that it’s time I started wearing this, and
she was sick of it anyway. Now this is breaking with the normal rules of family hand-me-downs. Coz Fiona should, according to tradition, offer it to Claire first, then Susan, and only then, if they’ve both refused it, can she offer it to me.
Fiona says that Claire and Susan have more than enough gear of their own, without taking this shirt too. And besides, she says, they aren’t going out on hot dates tonight.
Fiona turns her back, and I fling off the towel and get dressed. I stand in front of the full-length mirror, and I’m a vision in grey.
Stunning, says Fiona, hugging me. That’s the one, the heart-breaker!
She lets me use some of her spray to flatten down my brown springy hair and when I look at myself again I’m pleased. My legs are too skinny, my herrings are a bit too short, and Fiona’s shirt is way too big and flaps about around my waist even though miles of it is already tucked in, bundled all around me, making it look like I’m wearing a nappy. But even so, the overall impression is quite slick, and the spray-flattened hair is the icing on the cake.
Saidhbh, Saidhbh, Saidhbh.
There are two types of songs: Drinking Songs and Rebel Songs. In most parties, when the music gets going, and the booze is doing its job, everyone starts singing Drinking Songs. These are songs about coming into the parlour and having a drink on the house and generally having a laugh and getting drunk. They’re fast songs and you clap along to them or stamp your feet. Mam and Dad only ever have Drinking Songs at their parties. Same with Maura Connell, Maisie O’Mally and most of the other adults on our road. But every now and then you hear about a party where they started singing Rebel Songs. These are songs about being Irish and fighting the English and never giving up the struggle. Mam and Dad were at a party once where everyone started singing Rebel Songs. Mam made Dad ask for their coats and they walked out in disgust.
This is not because Mam and Dad don’t like being Irish. It’s because, says Mam, there’s singing, and there’s killing, and they’re two different sports altogether. Her father was in the IRA before they became burger-bombers, so she should know.
If you’re at a party and someone starts singing a Rebel Song, it’s as if they’re smoking pot in front of you.
You’re either in or you’re out.