Bronagh gave her the thumbs up wondering if she could sing and hold her stomach in at the same time. ‘And you look the part, too,’ she added.
Maureen looped her thumbs through the belt hooks on her skirt like she did at the line dancing classes and began uttering a quiet ‘me, me, me, me,’ to warm her voice up. She wound up coughing due to the smoky atmosphere but by the time they got the signal they were up, she was recovered.
‘Jaysus, Mammy, Bronagh, you’re not after getting up, are you?’
‘Don’t you be starting with the discrimination. You’re only as old as you feel and we’ve a fine pair of lungs on us haven’t we Bronagh?’
‘We have indeed, Maureen. We’ve been around the block a few times, so.’
Maureen cast her a ‘speak for yourself’ glance unsure what that was supposed to mean before wagging her finger in her youngest child’s face. ‘Watch and learn how it’s done.’
Moira shook her head watching her mammy step up on stage. She leaned into Roisin whose hand had flown to her mouth as she swallowed a giggle. ‘And she was on at me about flashing my knickers to all and sundry about town.’
Nina’s brown eyes were enormous at the sight of Mrs O’Mara with her skirt caught in the back of her knickers. ‘I’ll tell her.’ But the song had already started and she didn’t want to rain on her parade. ‘Maybe she’ll stay put and nobody will notice,’ she added hopefully as Moira and Roisin clutched each other in fits. Staying put and doing nothing was not on Maureen’s curriculum though and with due Dolly flair she began strutting around the stage to 9 To 5. Bronagh’s attempts to catch hold of her and wrest her skirt down as Maureen somehow managed to stay one step ahead of her only served to make the girls laugh harder. Even Nina had begun to giggle.
IT WAS APPROXIMATELY one fifty-three am by the time Ned dropped the remaining hens off back at O’Mara’s. He’d been very obliging in taking the other girls, Leila included, home beforehand. The mammy one in the back had not stopped going on about how she thought her drink had been spiked by your dimply one on the bar because it was not in her character to make a holy show of herself. The purple knickers one who by all accounts hadn’t touched a drop all night informed her mammy there was no drink spiking involved and the holy show was down to the gins, the tequilas and the cocktails her mammy had knocked back over the course of the evening. They were still bickering over it all as they tried to open the door to the guesthouse.
‘Thank you, Ned, you’ve been a star so you have,’ the bride-to-be said, making him blush by giving him a kiss on the cheek before sorting her mammy and sisters out. She pushed the door open and herded them inside telling them to keep the noise down because it was a guesthouse not a fecking...
Whatever it was he didn’t catch it, and getting back in his limousine he drove off home knowing it would be a very long time before his U2 CD saw the light of day again.
Chapter 19
Noreen
Noreen tapped the side of the sieve and a sprinkle of icing sugar rained down on the Victoria sponge cake like snow. She stood back to admire her handiwork satisfied with the end result. It had become her signature cake around the village over the years. If ever there was a party, birthday or funeral and a cake was needed, she was enlisted to make one of her famous deep sponges. The baking of it never ceased to be bittersweet for the memories it evoked but memories were part of what made us who we were, Noreen always thought. You had to take the bad in order to have the good and as such there was no point in ignoring them. This sponge with its homemade jam, something she had time for now she no longer ran the shop, and fresh cream filling was intended for Father Peter. She wanted his advice as to what she should do about Emer and didn’t like to appear at the rectory empty handed. She knew Father Peter, a portly man with a penchant for anything sweet, like her Malachy, could never resist her sponge cake, and as such she’d have his undivided attention. Noreen untied her apron and went to tidy herself up.
With her headscarf knotted beneath her chin to stop her hair from turning into a bird’s nest in the gusty breeze, she set off. It was a short walk through the village to the church at its edge. She was carrying the cake in her trusty container. She’d bought it years ago when Rosamunde had begun dabbling in Tupperware parties, balking at the price of it but Rosamunde had convinced her it would be an investment. It had been too, she’d be lost without it now. She spied Maisie Donovan’s cocker spaniel, Timmy, nosing around outside the butchers and held her container a little tighter. She didn’t trust the animal one little bit and had threatened Maisie with a phone call to the powers that be more than once. Sure, she’d once watched the crafty dog leap around the legs of Mrs Sweeney outside that very butchers. The poor woman, nervy at the best of times, had dropped the sausages she’d bought for her and Mr Sweeney’s dinner and the cocker spaniel had absconded with them, tail wagging all the way.
She
