‘I’m suddenly staring at a photograph of him – he’s maybe Honor’s age – bawling his eyes out, sitting on the old council gritter . . .’
SEE HER THROUGH the stained glass window in the front door, shuffling up the hallway, telling me she’ll be right there – not as fast on her feet as she used to be. I suppose she’s got to be the best port of, what, 80?
She opens the door. Cordigan. Glasses. Grey, woolly Afro.
“Is this the McGahy residence?” I go, even though I already know it’s the right place.
She’s like, “Yes!” except she sort of, like, shouts it. “What is it you’re selling? Whatever it is, we’ve enough.”
“I’m not actually selling anything,” I go. “This is basically a social call? I’m a past pupil of Castlerock College.”
“Oh, you’ve come to visit Thomas!” she goes. Her face is suddenly lit up like a runway. Her son’s an obvious Billy No Mates – she possibly sees me as a potential “friend”.
Then her expression changes again. “But you’ve just missed him.” Which I already know, because I watched him leave in his cor – with a sticker on the back that says, “No one ever foreclosed on a Starlet!” He’s not focking wrong there.
“Oh,” I go, “What a nuisance! Well, your son was some teacher. I can still remember loads of the . . .” – what the fock did he teach again? I take a punt – “. . . poetry we learned.”
She’s like, “Poetry?” her face all scrunched up, like Sorcha’s granny when she’s trying to use the TV remote. “But he always taught geography.” Geography – that was it.
“My point,” I go, skillfully recycling, “was that he made it sound like poetry? All the names of the different countries. Holland and all the other ones. Blah, blah, blah. Things that’ll stay with me forever – and that’s being honest.”
She seems happy enough with that because she invites me in. She’s there, “He’ll only be an hour,” which I also already know, because he has a coffee and reads the papers in Insomnia in Dún Laoghaire every Sunday morning.
She’s like, “Will you have tea?”
And I go, “Tea . . . would be . . . delightful,” with my two hands joined, as if in prayer. It’s a performance and a half, even I have to admit it.
She lashes on the kettle, then, like, indicates for me to sit in the comfy chair next to the fire, which I do. “Do you know what,” she goes, “you remind me a lot of Thomas when he was younger.”
I crack on to find that hilarious. I’m like, “Really? I’d consider that a basic compliment, Mrs McGahy.”
“Call me Mellicent,” she goes, counting three teabags into the pot. “Oh, he had lovely manners, just like you.”
I’m there: “‘It’s nice to be nice’ is a catchphrase I’d constantly use.”
She pours the hot water into the teapot, then suddenly stops, as if remembering something. “I must show you some photographs of him – I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Off she shuffles, presumably into the livingroom, then comes back a minute later with this humungous, black, leather-bound album, which she drops in my lap.
The mother lode.
I’m suddenly staring at a photograph of him – he’s maybe Honor’s age – bawling his eyes out, sitting on the old council gritter. “He would not be toilet trained,” she goes.
I’m like, “No way!” – trying, but failing miserably, to hide my delight.
“Oh, he’d have tried the patience of the entire communion of saints. The angels as well. Sure, he wore a nappy until he was seven . . .”
I’d have paid 10 grand for that kind of info when I was at school.
“In fact, his sister, who was three years younger than him, she used to call him Shippy Pants. Because she couldn’t pronounce the real word, see.”
I’m there: “I’m presuming shitty?”
And there it is! A photograph of him as an actual boy – he was even tall for seven – wearing a proper, full-on nappy.
“Hey,” I suddenly go, “you wouldn’t have any more of those bourbon creams, would you, Mellicent?”
And she straight away goes, “Of course” and then, as soon as she turns her back to get them, I rip the photo out of the album and slip it into my sky rocket.
I’m there: “Do you mind me commenting, by
the way – I don’t see any girlfriends in here.
Were there ever any women on the scene?”
She reaches for the book and turns 10, maybe 20, pages for me. He’s obviously her pride and joy – a whole album dedicated to him. “There,” she goes, “that’s Peggy – that was the girl he took to his debs dance.”
I have to put my hand over my actual mouth. She’s the kind of ugly that makes you want to weep. Think Martin Johnson with an overbite.
“What about since?” I go, slipping the photo into my pocket. “Is he with anyone now? As in, with with?”
“Oh, yes!” she goes. “He’s met a beautiful girl. She’s a nurse. I have diabetes, you see, and she was the one who managed to get my blood pressure down . . .”
The very next words I hear are, “Mother, go into the livingroom.” He’s suddenly standing at the door of the kitchen. When she doesn’t immediately move, he shouts it, “Mother, go into the livingroom!” in the exact same way he used to shout in class.
She waddles off out of the room and I’m like, “Cracking cup of tea, Mellicent,” really rubbing it in. He’s like, “What the hell are you doing in my house?”
I stand up. I’m at least three inches taller than him, see, which always bothered him at school. I’m like, “Not nice, is it? When someone intrudes on your, I suppose you could say, family life? My son is upset that his school principal is going out with his mother.”
He’s like, “I don’t have to justify my relationships to you or anyone else.”
I’m there, “I’m here to tell you to finish it with her – or you’ll be sorry.”
“Get out of my house this instant. I’m calling the guards.”
I laugh in his actual face. “Don’t worry, I’m going. But remember, I did warn you. Shippy Pants.”
rossocarrollkelly.ie, twitter.com/rossock