She’d regretted making the call the moment she’d heard her sister’s haughty hello down the line. She’d pictured her standing in the hallway of her big house in Tramore. She’d be beside the telephone table where she always had a vase of fresh flowers, twirling the cord of the telephone in that way of hers.
Hilary was a very self-important housewife who’d married a solicitor. Her husband George had been working for a Dublin firm when she met him. He was staid with his dull suits and short back and sides when all the other fellas were beginning to wear their hair a touch too long, but he had good prospects. Good prospects mattered to Hilary who’d always imagined herself somewhere fancier than the two bedroomed terrace where she’d grown up, where Bronagh still lived with her mam. She and George had married and moved to his hometown of Tramore by the seaside in County Waterford not long after and he’d opened a practice there. Hilary was a lady of leisure these days, or at least she was between the hours of eight thirty and three o’clock now her two children, Declan and Erin, were both at school. She had a cleaning woman who came once a week and a man who did the garden. What her sister did with herself all day was a mystery to Bronagh.
There’d never been much love lost between the pair of them who were as different as night and day. Myrna would shake her head and wonder how two girls who were made by the same Mammy and Daddy could be so different. Bronagh hadn’t a clue; it was just the way it was and a fat lot of good Hilary had been when she’d said she was worried about their mam, too. The conversation had played out as she’d expected and she’d been annoyed at herself for hoping this time might be different.
‘Doctor Burke said it was viral last time she went and it’s probably still in her system. These things can hang about for a long while you know,’ Hilary had said, as though she were an expert on the subject of mystery viruses. ‘I don’t know what you expect me to do about it from here, Bronagh? I’m not exactly around the corner, now am I? And I can’t drop everything because Mam’s a little under the weather.’ She’d been defensive. ‘I’ve a family to be thinking of.’
And don’t we know it, Bronagh had thought. It was her sister’s trump card. ‘I, didn’t ask you to drop everything.’ She hadn’t rung to fight and bit back the question as to what she’d be dropping exactly. Her bridge club or luncheon with The Wives of the Businessmen of Tramore Society perhaps? She’d made that up but it was the sort of thing Hilary would swan along to, were it to exist. She’d tried to keep her voice steady because this wasn’t about her and Hilary, it was about Mam. ‘I’m trying to explain to you it’s more than her being under the weather, I’m sure of it. She was better, back to her old self and then after she took herself down to the shops, she just crashed. Her memory’s not right either, Hilary. She’s forgetting things which isn’t like her. Mam’s sharp as a tack usually. I’m worried and I thought you’d want to be kept in the loop.’
‘I do.’
‘Well then, I was hoping you’d talk some sense into her and get her to go back to Doctor Burke again. She pooh-poohs the idea whenever I bring it up but she listens to you. I’d take her myself but I’ve only just started at O’Mara’s. Do you remember the Georgian guesthouse by St Stephen’s Green?
‘Yes, I remember it.’
Not so much as a hint of interest in her voice, Bronagh thought, not knowing why this stung even though she’d expected no different. ‘Well, I’m their new receptionist and I don’t want to be asking for time off so soon in the picture.’ She’d had a bright idea. ‘Could Mam come and stay with you for a week or so? The salt air might perk her up and she hasn’t seen the children in a good while.’
She’d heard the horror in Hilary’s voice, aghast at the very idea. ‘So, you’d have Declan and Erin catching whatever it is Mam’s picked up, would you?’
‘I don’t think it’s contagious, Hilary. I never got it. Sure, I’m fit as a fiddle.’
There’d been a weighty sigh. ‘Well I can’t risk it. What sort of a mother would that make me? Go and fetch her. I’ll have a word.’
‘I’ll see if I can get her to come downstairs. She’s in bed.’
‘At this time of the day?’
Bronagh had rolled her eyes. Had her sister not listened to a word she’d been saying?
‘I haven’t got all day. The children will be wanting their tea soon.’
Bronagh’s hand had trembled with rage as she put the receiver down on the shelf where the telephone sat and she’d taken a steadying breath before calling, ‘Mammy,’ as she took to the stairs. She’d poked her head around the bedroom door dismayed to find the room dark despite it being light still outside. It was stuffy and smelt of skin and the washing liquid they used for their laundry. She’d open the curtains and the windows a crack to let some fresh air in, in a minute. ‘Mammy, Hilary’s on the telephone wanting a word.’ She’d moved closer to the bed and two eyes had blinked up at her. Her mam’s dressing gown was sprawled at the bottom of the bed and she’d picked it up. ‘C’mon now.
