Page 33 of The F*cking Fabulous Forties Club

It’s then I remember my mother and Mrs Bishop and our planned outing to Asda.

‘Shit!’ I say. ‘I’ve just remembered, I promised to take my mum and Mrs Bishop up to Asda tomorrow to do a bit of Christmas shopping and there’s only three weeks left until the big day so I don’t want to put it off. Neither of them get out very much and I know they’ll be looking forward to it.’ I’m aware that I am laying it on heavy, but I know that while Niamh rarely takes a ‘no’ from me, she wouldn’t do anything that would risk annoying or upsetting Roisin Burnside.

‘Ah, really?’ she asks, disappointment evident in her voice.

‘I only arranged it this afternoon,’ I say. ‘And you know she had that fall last week, and Mrs Bishop hasn’t a being near her to look after her so I really wouldn’t want to call her back and let them both down. If I know them they’ll be making their shopping lists already and have themselves all excited for the trip.’ I’m aware I’m only talking about Asda and not an all-expenses-paid trip to the Seychelles, so I tell myself to reel the drama in a bit. ‘And you know how my mother loves Asda and thinks there’s no place like it.’

‘I know,’ Niamh says. ‘In fairness I could do with a wee run up to Asda myself. It’s great for getting clothes for Fiadh. How about I come along too? We can make it an intergenerational girls’ day of fun.’

How Niamh has the energy for this level of enthusiasm at the end of the working week is beyond me, but here she is nonetheless, rallying the troops for a trip of a lifetime… to the supermarket.

The only problem is, if I say yes she will learn quite quickly that we’re leaving the house at eight in the morning and she will also work out that even on her best days my mother isn’t able to manage more than a couple of hours at the very most in Asda. Which, of course means she will work out very quickly that we will definitely be home in time for our City Girl makeover appointment. I’ve really landed myself in it this time.

And that’s how I find myself agreeing to whatever in God’s name a City Girl makeover is – as long as no one comes at me with hot wax, all should be good.

23

EMBRACE THE FULL BRIEF

Taking my mother and Mrs Bishop around a supermarket three weeks before Christmas reminds me greatly of what it was like to take the boys out when they were wee and totally feral. Both women went straight for the big trollies after plotting their plan of action on the drive up from Derry to the border town of Strabane. Niamh was very impressed. ‘I thought older people liked to take their time and have a dodder about the place,’ she said. ‘Those two are something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped on some camo gear to go full guerrilla operation.’

‘I’m not sure camo gear would blend in with the sparkles and bright colours of the Asda women’s wear department,’ I say. ‘Otherwise, I’d agree with you.’

My mother is a creature of habit. Each year, even though we are both almost fifty, she insists on buying new pyjamas and socks for Ruairi and me. She also buys new pyjamas for my twins and for Ruairi’s two girls. This is a tradition that cannot be broken, not even when I tell her the boys aren’t really big into pyjamas and are more likely to sleep in their jocks and a T-shirt than anything. ‘And if there was a fire, would they run out into the street in their pants?’ she argues. ‘I think not. So a decent pair of pyjamas they can wear in an emergency is a good thing to have. And what if they had to go into hospital? Sure, you wouldn’t want to be scrambling round trying to buy them pyjamas then. No, Rebecca. I have bought them pyjamas every year since their first Christmas and I am not about to stop now. Let me do things my way!’

So I do. I watch as she enters the store, goes straight for the escalator to the first floor and starts throwing pyjamas into her trolley as if she’s on Supermarket Sweep while Mrs Bishop is zooming up and down the aisles like a demon selecting an array of Christmas jumpers, socks and pants. I didn’t know Mrs Bishop could move that fast.

Meanwhile Niamh and I are standing beside the children’s clothes while she tries to pick out some new bits and bobs for Fiadh – aka the fussiest child in the world – while my dying ovaries are having one last gasp of longing at the sight of the teeny tiny onesies declaring it is ‘Baby’s First Christmas’. I think of my boys – both of them standing at over six feet tall, hairy and beardy with deep voices and size-twelve feet and I marvel that they ever fitted into a onesie in their lives. It’s even madder that at one time they both existed in my uterus together. And now look at them, with their men-feet and their chest hair. I’d give my right ovary – not that it would be much use to anyone at this stage – to be able to spend just ten minutes with them as the wee boys they used to be. I know I was permanently exhausted and my house looked at all times as if it had just been carpet-bombed but oof, the feel of their wee chubby, often sticky, hands on my face or holding my hand. It made me feel like the most important person in the world.

‘Rebecca, should I get you a 14-16 or an 18-20?’ my mother hollers loud enough that I can hear her over the Christmas croonings of my one true love, Mr Michael Bublé, on the shop’s speaker system.

I feel a sea of eyes turn in my direction and run their way up and down my figure, all asking themselves the same question my mother has just asked me and I want to crawl inside my own body and die. This brings back a very vivid memory of her announcing to both my father and my brother that I was ‘a woman now’ when I got my first period circa 1989. In those days, in our part of the world, a period was talked about then as if it were some giant, dirty secret and it was a fate worse than death for a boy to find out you were bleeding out of your vagina. That my mother relayed this news to my father and my one-year-older-than-me brother over our evening meal of potato waffles and Turkey Jetters – with a side salad because we weren’t heathens – was utterly mortifying. Almost as mortifying as my mother announcing what size she thought I might be in Asda, even if anyone with eyes could probably have a fair guess at it without being prompted. As I hurry across the shop floor to tell her that the 14-16 would probably be okay, but maybe just go with the 18-20 for extra comfort, I wonder if matricide is always morally reprehensible.

‘Mum!’ I hiss. ‘Do you have to announce my size to the whole shop?’

‘Everyone is too busy worrying about their own problems to worry about what size of pyjamas a stranger in a shop is wearing,’ she says. I really hope that’s true.

‘You shouldn’t let what other people think annoy you,’ she adds. ‘You’re perfect the way you are. Now tell me this, if I’m getting you some new underwear would you like a full brief this time? They are so comfy and easy on the old menopausal tummy.’

I know she is trying to be lovely and supportive and I don’t want to be cross at her so I agree to get the big knickers and resolve to order myself something a little more alluring from Marks and Spencer when we get home. If I am going to enter the dating arena, I’ll need something sexier than a full cotton belly-warming brief.

My humiliation complete for one morning, I saunter back to Niamh who has adopted a one-of-everything approach for Fiadh.

‘I figure if I buy it all, she can choose herself and I can return whatever she doesn’t like. It just makes it easier. I’m going to pick up some toys for her Christmas presents too,’ she says. ‘Is it okay if I leave those in your house so madam doesn’t find them? I think we’ve only one or two Santa years left and I don’t want to risk getting discovered.’

‘Of course,’ I tell her.

‘I don’t know what I’ll do when we’ve no Santa to worry about any more,’ Niamh says, a little misty-eyed. ‘It will feel like the proper end of an era. Why is everything speeding up so fast just now? The years just fly in.’

In the background, Michael Bublé is singing ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ – a song that reduces me to a mess at the best of times – and I’m watching my best friend get emotional. And Niamh Cassidy never gets emotional. Not the sad kind anyway. She’s famed for her ability to laugh in the face of adversity and not let the times life has served her a shite sandwich get her down. I both admire her and fear her because of it. In my darkest moments I’ve wondered if she is some kind of sociopath. I mean, she has never ever cried at Grey’s Anatomy. Not even the 007 scene at the end of series five.

I watch as she glances down at her trolley, filled with clothes that seem aimed at the tween market as opposed to the cutesy little girl market. There are no pretty party dresses or traditional tartan smocks. It’s skinny jeans, slogan sweaters and a pair of high-tops.

‘Our baby is growing up,’ I say, tears pricking at my own eyes. Fiadh, being the very unexpected surprise that she was, has felt a little like our communal child these last seven years and I have revelled in her childhood in a way I didn’t have the patience for when the twins were young.

‘You don’t expect it to go so fast,’ she says. ‘Even when it feels interminable, and you want to swing for every single fucker who tells you childhood goes by in the flash of an eye. But it really does go so fast.’

I reach out to give her a consoling hug but in a moment she seems to switch back to Niamh mode and shake off her tearfulness.

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