‘Dowdy, so they are,’ Maureen declared. ‘Have you seen Quinn’s mam’s outfit?’
‘I don’t think Mrs Moran’s bought anything yet.’
Maureen frowned, she’d have liked a heads-up as to what the competition was wearing.
‘How’s she doing these days?’
‘Grand, she’s doing grand.’ Quinn’s mam had suffered a stroke the previous year but had battled her way through to recovery, although she got tired very quickly these days. Aisling explained this to her mammy. ‘It’s why she didn’t come with us today. She didn’t want to slow us down. I wouldn’t have minded though.’
‘It’s a shame she didn’t come. I’d have liked the opportunity to get to know her better. I must invite her to lunch now that we’re going to be family. What will you call her?’
‘What do you mean?’ Aisling asked.
‘Well you can hardly call her Mrs Moran after you’re married, now can you? And you already have a mammy.’ She pointed to her chest. ‘Me.’
‘I know that, thank you, and one mammy is plenty.’
‘Well then, what’s it going to be?’
‘I’ll probably call her Maeve. She keeps asking me to.’ It didn’t roll easily off Aisling’s tongue, she’d always been Mrs Moran to her.
‘That’s very forward, Aisling. I didn’t raise you to call your elders by their first names. Sure, do you not remember that precocious little madam from your playgroup who called her mammy, Dervla? It was all Dervla this and Dervla that. It didn’t sound right coming from a child and if she’d tried it on me, I’d have sorted her out.’
‘No, I don’t remember, Mammy, but then I’d have only been three at the time. And I don’t see the point of your story anyway, given the difference between a little girl calling her mammy by her first name and a woman in her mid-thirties addressing her mammy-in-law by her first name.’
Maureen made the face she always made when she didn’t want to admit she could be wrong, but she was saved from having to say anything by the sudden sound of Madame Mullan’s excited voice.
‘Oh, éclatant!’ she exclaimed from the fitting room.
Mammy and Aisling looked at one another although neither had a clue as to what she’d said.
‘She’s not French you know. I think she’s from Tipperary. Listen closely, it’s in the way she rolls her r’s and McBride is about as French as—’
‘My arse,’ Aisling finished for her and Maureen nodded her agreement. They giggled, co-conspirators.
‘It might be nice for your outfit to coordinate with the bridesmaids’ dresses.’ Aisling said moving toward the more subtle colours on the rack.
Maureen nodded thoughtfully but said, ‘I like the bold colours more myself.’ She homed in on a red two-piece suit. Aisling grimaced behind her back, the warm champagne fuzz wearing off at the sight of it. She knew her mammy well enough though to be tactful or she’d dig her heels in and the red outfit would be the one going home with them, purely because she didn’t like being told what to do. Where Mammy was concerned, she considered it her job to be telling everyone else what they should be doing.
‘Ah but, Mammy,’ Aisling cast about quickly and whipped the first item off the rack that came to hand. Distraction was key. ‘Look at this.’ She waved it under her nose. ‘Sure, you’d look like a million dollars in this. Oh yes, you’d look like you’d stepped out of the pages of Hello.’ She knew Mammy scoured the magazine’s shiny pages each time she went to the hairdressers.
Maureen paused and took stock of the dress Aisling was shaking about. ‘Hold still for a minute would you so I can get a better look. It was simple and elegant which a woman of her height and bust size needed in order not to look fussy. She stopped stroking the red suit and moved toward the champagne coloured, fitted dress. She liked the lacy sleeves. ‘Sure, it’s the same colour as your wedding gown.’
Aisling looked at it properly and liked what she saw. It was elegant and classy. Not words that sprang to mind when she thought of her mammy but there was a first time for everything. She sensed she could be on to a winner if she played her cards right. ‘Mammy,’ she encouraged. ‘The photographs would look ever so stylish with us all coordinated like and you could go big with your hat. It’s a dress that needs a big hat.’
‘A big hat, you say?’ Maureen envisaged herself in all her champagne-matching-dress glory peeping out from under the brim of a large hat which was dipping down over one eye to give her an air of the mysterious mammy of the bride. She was sold. ‘I’ll try it on.’
Aisling did a mental happy dance. The icing on the cake came a moment later when Moira appeared from between the fitting room curtains, ‘Are you watching.’
‘Yes,’ Aisling and Maureen turned their attention to the platform. The curtains opened and Moira danced her way out in front of them looking pretty in pink. She was seemingly happy with her dress as she began to sing, Girl’s Just Want to Have Fun. Leila and Roisin were on backing.
Chapter 12
Noreen
Noreen’s feet were aching from the day’s shopping and it was a relief to board the bus that would take her home to Claredoncally. She was always glad to see the back of the city and return to her village where people were civilised and still managed to say good morning and good afternoon to one another. Manners cost nothing but they’d been in short supply on the town’s streets today. Sure, look at the driver, he’d barely acknowledged her as she’d presented her senior’s card to him. Still, at least it had been a successful day’s shopping and she wasn’t going home empty handed, she thought, bustling her way down the aisle. She
