Page 10 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

‘I still know every word,’ she says and for a moment I’m tempted to launch into it and see if she joins in. But then I remember I’m sober and forty-six.

There’s another pause in conversation as we turn into my street. ‘Will you open it?’ Niamh asks as she pulls the car over outside my house.

‘The time capsule? Probably,’ I tell her. ‘But it would feel weird to open it on my own. I mean, I know we put a lot of stupid mementos in it but if I remember correctly, we all put some personal things in too. Hopes and dreams kind of stuff. It doesn’t feel like mine to open in a lot of ways.’

‘Then we should open it together,’ Niamh says. ‘You and me, and maybe Laura too. If she wants to. If it’s not too awkward.’ I know what she means. I’m not naïve enough to think a quick hug over the top of a coffin will erase all the hurt of the last decade. It was a nice start but it might never be more than that.

‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘It would be nice if we were all there together. I’ll not open it until we’ve spoken to Laura about it first.’

We make arrangements for going to the funeral together and say our goodbyes. I’m just about to open the car door to get out when Niamh reaches over for a hug. ‘I know nothing about that was easy for you,’ she says. ‘So I just wanted to give you a hug and tell you I love you and you’re the best friend a girl could want. Will you be okay? On your own? I have to get back to the younger ones. Paul is working and Jodie’s staying up at college in Belfast this weekend, but you’re welcome to come with me if you can stand it. The boys will probably just hide in their rooms and shout at the Xbox, but Fiadh is very good at hugs and making you feel good about yourself.’

At seven, Fiadh was the surprise later-in-life baby none of us, especially not Niamh and Paul, expected, but she had very quickly become one of my favourite people in the entire universe.

‘I’d love to,’ I tell Niamh, the thought of a Fiadh super-hug warming my heart. ‘But Daniel has been sick and I want to keep a wee eye on him. If anything happens to him while the boys are in Manchester, my life won’t be worth living.’

Niamh smiles. ‘No worries. I understand.’ And maybe she does, but I know I’ve not really been honest with her either. If anything happened to Daniel it would kill me. He’s my sole company on many a day and the one creature on this planet who is always happy to see me.

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ I tell her before she drives off and I walk up the garden path to my home and the sound of Daniel barking enthusiastically at my return. I think I’ll let him sleep at the end of my bed tonight. Again.

7

HOLY CANDLE IN THE WIND

I hate funerals. Every last second of them. I hate how performative they are, the formality a stark contrast to the friendly welcome of the wake.

I know they are by their very nature sad and solemn affairs, but when I think of Kitty, I don’t think of the woman the priest on the altar describes. He calls her ‘a faithful servant of the Lord’ more than once. He doesn’t mention her grandchildren. He doesn’t mention that she had a singing voice that gave the lucky listener goosebumps. He doesn’t mention that she was the worst baker known to man and there was many a birthday cake left untouched by even the bravest of children because we all knew about the one time everyone who ate her cake got ‘the scoots’. He doesn’t mention her beauty, or her sense of style. He doesn’t even mention her joie de vivre.

It rattles me and without realising, I find myself muttering out loud that the priest hasn’t the first notion what Kitty was like and he is a sour-faced old fucker anyway, which gets me a bad look from an old woman with a face like a slapped arse sitting in the row in front. I want to stick my tongue out at her but I don’t. I will remain respectful. Niamh takes my hand in hers. I assume it’s a sign of comfort or affection, but maybe she’s just afraid I’ll flip the bad-look-giver the finger. She knows how funerals wind me up.

‘I’m not going to say anything,’ I whisper, but in my head I play out a scenario where I storm to the front of the chapel and address the congregation on how women, especially this woman, deserve more. I play out imaginary scenarios like this a lot in my head. More so in recent times as the Unexpected Waves of Sadness have become more frequent along with their counterpart: Unexpected Waves of Rage. My doctor thinks it might be hormonal. She urged me to consider HRT. I’ve told her it’s not because of my hormones, it’s just that I’ve had enough of women getting a raw deal and I don’t want to keep quiet about it any more.

She nodded sympathetically and handed me a leaflet on perimenopause and HRT as I left. It’s still at the bottom of my handbag, along with a crumpled tissue, a fuzzy Polo mint and an indiscernible number of wrinkled poo bags.

At least, I think, the rage is stopping me from feeling profoundly sad. I don’t want to let that particular feeling in just now because I fear if I start crying, I might not stop for a long time. Rage is safer.

Laura looks wretched as she follows the coffin out of the church towards Kitty O’Hagan’s final resting place. Exhausted and drawn, her pale face is particularly stark against the black of her dress and coat. Aidan, her husband, is holding her hand and the hand of their only child, Robyn. I’ve not seen Robyn outside of pictures since she was six years old and I’m struggling to reconcile the image in my head of the joyful bundle of life I remember with the solemn-faced emo holding her dad’s hand. She is wearing thick, clumpy army boots, a coat that looks as if it’s been through a shredder and long, black fingerless gloves, perfect for showing off her black nail polish. Even in her grief she looks assured and sure of herself. Kitty must have bloody adored her. I bloody adore her and wish I had been as cool as she is when I was sixteen. Instead, I was making time capsules and learning Kylie Minogue raps.

‘Are we going to the cemetery too?’ Niamh asks when the Mass is over. I nod because it feels like the right thing to do. Even though I really don’t want to. The memories of my father’s funeral and burial are starting to come at me thick and fast but as usual, I push them down. We start to shuffle our way out of the pew to follow the procession of mourners when Simon appears in the aisle, waiting for us.

‘Close family and friends are invited to The Bishop’s Gate for lunch after the burial,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you’d be more than welcome if you want to come along.’

Niamh and I look at each other. That feels like an invitation too far given our prolonged estrangement. ‘I think we might catch up with Laura another time,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t need to be worrying about us.’

He shrugs, his badly fitting suit bunching up and giving him the look of an eighties’ throwback, and walks off.

‘Does his jacket have shoulder pads?’ Niamh whispers, eyes wide, and the thing is, I’m pretty sure it does. How did this man ever not give me the ick?

I’m feeling quite sombre when I get home. I make sure to call my mother and tell her I love her. She’s immediately suspicious but I assure her I’m not looking for anything except to tell her I love her. For a moment I think that makes her even more suspicious until she remembers that Laura’s mum has just been buried. She tells me she loves me too and that I’m to look after myself. I promise I will before changing out of my mourning clothes into leggings and an oversized hoodie that is in danger of becoming ordinary sized due to my fondness of biscuits.

Daniel looks at me longingly and so I slip on my trainers, my puffa coat and my knitted beanie hat and grab his lead. ‘You win, fellah,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s go walkies.’ He reacts with such joyous enthusiasm that I can’t help but feel my spirits lift.

So we walk around the Culmore Country Park four times, not even taking a shortcut when the heavens open and the rain starts to fall in sheets, drenching us both from head to toe. I walk until I’m tired, the light is starting to fade and Daniel is regretting his enthusiasm for walks, and then we go home. I stick the heating on, dry Daniel off, strip out of my outer clothes and escape upstairs to run myself a deep, hot bubble bath.

I even go to the effort of gathering and lighting some candles and pouring myself a glass of wine before I strip out of my remaining saturated clothes and slip under the suds. It’s not quite giving the luxurious spa vibe I would’ve liked. The collection of candles is a bit eclectic to say the least – including one designed to clear cooking smells, three tea-lights, the dregs of a Yankee Candle, and a holy candle with Our Lady printed on the outside which my mother brought me back from the shrine at Knock in County Mayo. But if I just focus on the cosy glow they give off then it works. My wine is cold and delicious and the warmth of the water is bringing life back to my frozen toes. I close my eyes and rest my head back, grateful that the boys are grown and gone and long past the stage of automatically needing a poo every single time I dared to try and relax in the bath. Yes, I miss my babies. No, I do not miss my babies’ refusal to give me any peace and quiet.

The tension is just leaving my body when I hear my doorbell ring. No. No, I am not getting out of the bath and schlepping it downstairs wrapped in Saul’s old dressing gown only to find someone looking to talk to me about Jesus or sell me something. I choose to ignore it, hoping against hope that whoever it is will get the message and clear off.

They don’t, but instead ring the doorbell for a second time, which only prompts Daniel to burst into the song of his people and bark as loudly as his little doggy lungs will permit. The tension that had started to leave my body does an immediate about turn and crawls under my skin and into my very bones with remarkable efficacy.

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