They all took grateful gulps of the carbon monoxide filled air on O’Connell Street and clustered around Maureen under the awning of a nearby shop. Noah clung to his nana’s leg, tired and fed up, as she eked out the drama by pretending to be interested in the Christmas message on the cardboard wallet.
‘Get on with it, Mammy. Put us out of our misery,’ Roisin urged, mindful of her son who’d obviously had enough.
Maureen opened it and inspected the glossy print. Her face was unreadable as the sisters craned to see for themselves but Maureen snapped it shut before they could get a look, muttering, ‘Sweet Mother of Divine.’
‘Let me see,’ Moira snatched at it but Maureen held it out of reach, shaking her head so her dark hair swished back and forth, her face a picture of misery.
‘No.’ She played the guilt card. ‘All I wanted was a family photograph. A memento to pull out on those long afternoons when you’ve all gone back to your busy lives. Something to proudly show off to my friends. Was that so much to ask?’
Roisin draped her arm around her mammy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘No, of course it wasn’t, Mammy, and it can’t be that bad.’
‘It’s going in the bin as soon as we get home, so it is.’
‘Ah no, not after what we went through to get it taken. C’mon now, Mammy, let us have a look,’ Aisling said. They were burning with curiosity but Maureen was not going to be swayed easily and she unzipped her handbag making to put it away, sniffing all the while.
‘We’ll treat you to tea at Bewley’s.’ Aisling knew she’d hit on a winner by bribing her mammy with a cuppa at her favourite tearooms, when she zipped her handbag up.
‘Well don’t expect me to pitch in,’ Moira said. ‘I’m a student.’
‘A sticky bun, too?’ Mammy eyed Aisling.
‘Alright, a sticky bun too, now hand it over.’ She took the wallet from Maureen, and her sisters leaned in expectantly.
She opened it and stared, in horror, at the sight of them all immortalised in their red tops and blue jeans.
‘Jaysus wept, it’s the fecking Addams family alright.’ Moira was the first to speak, her two sisters rendered speechless as they soaked up the scene. Cindy had blatantly disobeyed Mammy’s instructions and her heaving chest was resting on Father Christmas’s shoulder. Patrick was staring at her assets with an expression of lust and consternation on his face. Father Christmas had obviously jumped, startled by the bosoms that had landed on his shoulder, and poor Noah was holding on to his leg for grim death like he was on a horse just off the starter blocks. Roisin’s hair, thanks to the damp Dublin day, was a bushy frizz about her face—give her a top hat and she’d look like yer Slash man from Guns n Roses. Moira had her eyes shut and looked like she’d been doing the drugs while Aisling appeared to have grown a black mole on the side of her mouth. ‘Why didn’t any of you tell me I had a chocolate chip stuck there?’
The sisters shrugged. ‘Because it was funny.’
The only one smiling beatifically at the camera was Mammy.
‘And it’s such a nice one of me,’ Maureen lamented sadly.
Chapter 14
1957
Eighteen-year-old Cliona Whelan had never been in love before and, falling in love was the last thing on her mind as she sat on a warm, sunny patch of grass near Trinity College. A bee buzzed lazily past and the air had an autumnal tang to it she fancied she could taste. It was a curious mix of grass and damp fallen leaves. She was people watching, her favourite way in which to while away her lunch break and today was a grand day for it, given the burst of unseasonal October sunshine. On her lap was an open notebook, her scrawled shorthand filling the page as she wrote down the different characteristics of the people milling about her.
She’d been particularly fascinated by the nervous looking girl she’d seen scurry across the park, a tote bag weighed down with text books hanging from her shoulder. There’d been something about the stoop in her shoulders and the way she wouldn’t meet any of her fellow students’ smiles. She’d been dressed plainly in a non-descript cardigan and skirt. It was the sort of outfit that would fade from your memory moments after she faded from your line of sight. Her hair had been scraped back in a ponytail and she’d kept pushing her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose. She’d not had so much as a slick of lipstick on her face which made her look younger than she was, given she was obviously a student. There was an air of vulnerability about her as she made her way toward the college buildings, a frown firmly embedded on her forehead.
Cliona scribbled away nervous disposition due to stress over impending exam results, probably from a small village and finding it hard to make friends in the big smoke. She paused, pen hovering over her notebook. She needed to eat. It was lunchtime after all and if she didn’t put something in her stomach, she could be sure it would make embarrassing rumblings at inopportune moments that afternoon. Accordingly, she tucked the pen behind her ear and retrieved the grease paper-wrapped sandwiches Mammy had thrust at her on her way out the door that morning.
It was a conundrum of sorts the whole falling in love thing, she mused, biting into the corned beef sandwich. She needed to experience it
