Of course, the weekend wasn’t going to be all about yoga pants and meeting Mammy’s man friend, Donal and his family was going to be interesting and she’d be getting in Moira’s ear about behaving herself. She wondered not for the first time what he’d be like. She pictured a lean, weather-beaten, yachtie type. What would his daughters make of Mammy and of her and her sisters? Yes indeed, it was going to be interesting but the weekend was about Shay, too. She planned on spending as much time as she could with him without getting told off by Mammy, who was after all paying her fare. She wondered how Mammy would take the news she’d organised to stay at his place so as to squeeze every possible moment, in between her family obligations, as she could with him. This business of him being in Dublin and her in London was hard work but it was the way it had to be at the moment. Who knew where they’d be in six months’ time? They’d have to see how it went.
The doors to the Arrivals hall opened and she scanned the area. Mammy had told her she would be wearing her yellow airport sweater for visibility purposes. It only took a second before she spied her and began wheeling her trolley toward the woman in a yellow sweater and yoga pants performing lunges for a cluster of women and one man who looked utterly bewildered as to what was going on. For Roisin’s part, she was slightly miffed that Mammy wasn’t scanning the floor for her oldest daughter and leaping up with excitement at the sight of her. She drew alongside the spectacle and waited for Mammy to stop the side bends she’d moved into and notice her.
Maureen received a smattering of applause when she straightened and spied Roisin. ‘Ah grand, here she is, my supplier.’
Roisin glanced around half expecting a customs man to march on over and haul her off to the room where they took the drug mules.
‘This is my daughter, everyone, Roisin. She’s after bringing the yoga pants in for me. They’ll be for sale at a heavily discounted price on Saturday evening at the Howth church hall.’
‘Hello there, Roisin,’ several accents chimed as they looked her way.
Roisin attempted a smile and nod but they’d already turned their attention back to Mammy who was handing out fliers and telling her audience to remember there’d be wine and finger food on offer too. Sweet Jaysus, Roisin thought, what had she gotten herself into? She waited for the small crowd to disperse.
Once they had, Mammy turned on her heel, still in business mode as she said, ‘C’mon, Rosi, we can’t be hanging around here all day. We’ve a party to be getting ready for.’
‘What was all that about?’ Roisin hissed once out of earshot. ‘Making a holy show of yourself with the lunges and the like.’
‘It’s called sales and networking, Rosi, that’s what that was all about, thank you very much.’ Maureen shook her head as if it were self-explanatory.
‘Yes, but half of those women were foreign.’
‘Roisin O’Mara! I didn’t raise you to hear talk like that. Sure, they’re as entitled as any God- fearing Irish woman to have access to comfortable trousers.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ She’d only been in Dublin ten minutes and she was already exhausted; it was going to be a long weekend. ‘I meant they’re not going to be wanting to be spending their holidays attending a yoga pants party in Howth, now are they?’
Maureen was beginning to regret her choice of business partner. Rosi never had been the sharpest tool in the shed. ‘Roisin.’ The tone was pained. ‘If you were setting off on your travels around a foreign country and knew you were going to be sitting on your arse on buses for hours on end or in a hire car or whatever else, you’d want to be wearing comfortable trousers while you were doing so, now wouldn’t you?’
‘I expect so.’
‘Well I know so. They’ll come, they’ll buy, and they’ll spread the word, and that my girl is what is called networking and marketing on a global scale. The yoga pant, Tupperware party formula could become a global phenomenon.’ Maureen nearly walked into the sliding doors which hadn’t opened as fast as they should have as she pictured women around the world holding bonfires as they burned their tight trousers in a symbolic celebration of comfy pants.
‘Mammy, would you look where you’re going.’
Outside it was already dark, and cold to boot. Roisin shivered despite her thick coat. ‘I’m not sitting in the back,’ she said as the car was unlocked and she spied his Royal Highness, Pooh the poodle perched in the passenger seat, his eyes gleaming in the darkness challenging her to take him on because he was top dog around here.
‘Roisin, you’ll do as you’re told, now in the back with you.’ Maureen clambered behind the wheel.
‘It’s not right,’ Roisin muttered, getting in the back and belting in. It smelt very doggy in here she thought, folding her arms across her chest.
‘Zip it, I need to concentrate.’
Roisin ignored her. If she could sit next to a panting poodle then she could manage a grilling about her man friend. ‘So, Mammy, we’re to have lunch with your Donal fella and his family on Sunday I hear.’
‘Say your piece, Rosi, your sisters both have.’
There was no point giving her a hard time; like she’d told Moira they needed to accept Mammy’s new friendship and besides she was curious. ‘What’s he like?’
Maureen’s eyes flicked from the rear-view mirror back to the road in front
