She’d been sitting in Bewley’s with Mammy and her sisters yesterday afternoon with a well-earned cup of tea and sticky bun in front of her—they’d all opted for sticky buns needing the sugar hit after the Christmas photo debacle. She needed sustenance too for braving the shops if she was going to finish her shopping. The air in the popular café was thick with the scent of brewing coffee and that peculiar easy-going joviality that the winding down into the festive season brought. Mammy kept opening the cardboard wallet for another look at the photo, saying that it was growing on her. Roisin suspected that was only because it was ever such a nice one of herself. She’d reached across the table to brave another glance, then wished she hadn’t. The state of her. The state of them all. She couldn’t be meeting Shay with a head of hair on her like that. Moira kept humming November Rain and she was going to put the boot in under the table if she wasn’t careful. There was nothing else for it, she’d have to see if Jenny could tidy her up before tomorrow night and, rummaging around in her handbag to retrieve her mobile, she looked up her old hairdressing pal’s number.
Her friend’s harried voice answered a few rings later. ‘It’s nice to hear from you Roisin and I’m sorry your split-ends have gotten so bad, but I’m very busy, so I am. There’s the twins and we’ve Eoin’s mam and da arriving the day after tomorrow and the house is in a state, and you know what that witch of a woman is like when it comes to inspecting my skirting boards for dust,’ Jenny had garbled upon hearing Roisin’s request.
Roisin held her mobile away from her ear grimacing as an ear-piercing and ongoing squealing sounded in the background. She’d forgotten what the terrible twos were like and Jenny had a double dose going on.
‘Don’t be playing fire engines when Mammy’s on the phone,’ Jenny chided. ‘Oscar loves making the siren noise so he does, and it’s doing my head in. Jaysus now Ophelia is after being an ambulance coming to the scene. Hang on a sec would ya and I’ll go in the toilet. It’s the only room with a lock where I can get some peace.’
Roisin busied herself with her bun waiting for Jenny to come back on the line and when she did her voice was echoey. She hoped she wouldn’t hear any other sounds while they chatted. ‘As I was saying, Rosi, I’m very busy. How long are you back for because I might be able to fit you in come the new year? How does that sound, we could have a good catch up then too?’
Roisin picked up a clump of hair and eyed the ends. She wouldn’t be fobbed off, not when it was imperative she look her best. She inspected her nails. Would she have time to get them done? No probably not. She’d ask Moira, she was good at manicures and Aisling would let her borrow a pair of her heels and give her some wardrobe advice. All of that was a waste of time though if her crowning glory made her look like she should be playing bass in a hard rock band. She really didn’t like to do a Mammy and waltz on down the guilt-tripping road but sometimes needs must. ‘Pooh’s gotten very big so he has.’ She aimed her dart hoping to hit the bull’s eye.
Jenny cleared her throat in what Roisin decided was a nervous manner. ‘I was just about to ask you how your mammy and him were getting on? It was ever so good of you to take him off our hands, like. The twins missed him for about five minutes and then forgot we ever had a puppy. Thank God.’
‘Well, I was glad to help because that’s what friends do and he’s settled in well with Mammy. Although, it’s looking like she’ll be leaving her worldly goods to him, he’s the apple of her eye, so he is. I have to say it was a shock to her, to all of us to realise he wasn’t going to be one of your tiny lap doggy poodles like I thought, though. Sure, I wouldn’t have offered to take him off your hands if it had been made clear.’ She waited and when she heard Jenny’s heavy sigh, she knew she’d won.
She gave Aisling who was eavesdropping across the table the thumbs up as Jenny said, ‘Alright then, seeing as it’s you. I can sort you out at ten but, Roisin, don’t be late, I mean it. I’ve to get to the shops in the afternoon or I’ll have no food in for the Christmas dinner and shopping with the twins is harder than coordinating the Queen’s fecking daily planner.’
Roisin smiled at the analogy. She was looking forward to seeing the gruesome twosome as their mammy called them. She slowed and indicated before turning into the driveway of 109. A tricycle lay abandoned in the front garden of the two-storey brick semi, and the flowerbeds either side of the front door could have done with a winter prune back, she noticed, getting out of her car and making her way up the front steps.
She hardly recognised Jenny when she opened the door. Where was the glamorous girl who’d had a penchant for silver jewellery and very cool clothes, more often
