Feeding Strawberries to Pigs Page 11

  Her mother had called to remind her that it was her 85th birthday in a few weeks time. They always tried to visit their mother on her birthday, at least Frances and Angela did. There would be hell to pay if they didn’t. Ever since Bernadette had cut off all contact with them they had all had to over compensate their mother for her loss. Frances knew she was not alone in feeling relieved that Bernadette was out of their lives. Blood might be thicker than water, but she had always believed that God gave you friends to compensate for your family. She hoped that her daughter would visit her when she was older because she wanted to, not out of a sense of duty. She looked at herself in the hall mirror; but she would have to lose weight if she wanted her daughter to feel anything other than repulsion for her mother.

  CHAPTER 3

  Angela Everett sat alone in her breakfast room eating dry toast and listening to the Sunday service on Radio 4; it was the nearest she got to a religious experience these days. For the last eight years her Sunday mornings had been taken up by rugby. At least her son played for London Irish, whose members were predominantly Catholic, it was practically like being at Mass.

  She looked at her calendar and winced-it would be Christmas before she knew it. She felt like her mother, asking herself where the year had gone. When she turned the page to check on a date, she saw a small neat entry she had made way back in January.

  Mammy’s 85th birthday.

  Her mother said she didn’t bother about her birthdays, but every year just before the end of September, she would call each daughter in turn and subtly bring the subject around to how it was ‘almost October.’ It had been very different when they were children. She could remember her mother saying that birthday parties were an English invention. Mammy’s birthday would mean a big visit, everyone converging on what was now just Mammy’s place. Angela knew she would put a lot of effort into it, but would end up feeling unappreciated. But it was one of life’s duties, the sort of ritual that no one really truly enjoys but the sort that people are made better by enduring. Parenthood contained too many of these for Angela’s comfort. She glanced at the clock and dragged herself out of the chair and walked to the end of the stairs.

  ‘Fergal are you awake? You have twenty minutes to get dressed and have some breakfast, less if your kit isn’t ready.’

  Some hope she thought. She was about to amble back to the table when she remembered that she would have to get dressed too. The last thing she needed was to have her ex husband see her in the long white cotton night-dress and bed socks she had taken to wearing since he left home.

  She opened her son’s bedroom door and felt assaulted by the odour of maleness that exuded from within it. Fergal lay asleep on the bed wired up to his walkman, with the controls of his play station still in his hands. A magazine lay open at the centrefold on his floor revealing a well waxed woman. Suspicious stains on the magazine reminded Angela of the more acceptable milestones she had recorded. No wonder her mother said she was glad she never had boys. The thought of her mother being able to step over the magazine as she did now, in order to get to the window to let fresh air in amused Angela.

  ‘Hi Mum’ Fergal sat up and smiled. She could always be melted by that smile.

  Angela had a quick shower and dressed in her tightest jeans and a top that clung to her breasts. Divorce had done her figure the world of good, something that cheered her up whenever she missed having someone to mow the lawn or attend school events with. She glanced at the long case clock on the landing a wedding present to her from Mark and sighed. The inscription on its face ‘Eternal love’ seemed such a mockery now.

  Standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil Angela’s thoughts returned to her mother’s birthday. She wrote herself a reminder to call Christina and Frances to discuss it with them. Only it wasn’t just Mammy’s birthday, it was Bernadette’s too. Bernadette-her eldest sister, whom no one had seen or heard from for twenty-five years, she would be 57 now. Angela’s memories of her sister were of a young glamorous woman whom she had idolised. She found it impossible to imagine what her sister would look like now. Most of the time she hardly thought about Bernadette, it was only when strangers asked her how many brothers or sisters she had that she would hesitate and face her own ‘St Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane moment’ should she say she had two or three sisters?

  She had no time now to dwell on Bernadette; she had to cajole her son to get his act together.

  ‘Fergal get off that play station and have some breakfast, your father will be here in five minutes. You know he gets cross if you aren’t ready the moment he arrives.’

  Fourteen-year-old Fergal was all that fourteen-year-old boys should be. He would be handsome again when his hormones calmed down. His Irish genes had bestowed him with dark wavy hair, creamy skin (in between the blackheads and pustules) and green-grey eyes. Angela was thankful that he had not inherited the Everett weak chin, mousy hair and piggy eyes. ‘Like two burnt holes in a blanket’, her mother had said when she had seen Mrs Everett for the first time at Angela and Mark’s wedding.

  So much had happened in the last twenty-five years that Angela wondered where Bernadette would fit in if she were to return now. They were all different people now. Her father was dead, Frances was the size of a house and the sister Bernadette knew as Maureen no longer existed, having transformed herself from a shy self conscious teenager into the cool sophisticated Christina. People expected families to be happy, sisters were meant to love each other. Angela was happy to settle for tolerance.

  Mark was on time; Angela opened the door and invited him in with an easy smile and only the slight hint of awkwardness. It never failed to amaze her how civilised they were to each other now that they were divorced. Life had calmed down and settled into a pattern of access visits and discussions over where Fergal was to spend his holidays. She imagined that it wouldn’t be long before Mark met someone else. The wild woman he had left her for did not stay around for long. She realised that access visits, and financing an ex wife and son meant the expensive presents, lavish meals, the weekends away she had enjoyed during the courting phase soon dried up. Angela was only a child herself. She imagined him telling her about the new woman in his life and rehearsed her reply. She hoped that he had learned from his mistakes and had made sure he found a nice Protestant English woman, from a good family.Even she would not wish his parents on anyone they did not approve of. Once after one of their many rows over his parents she had written him a reference to hand to any prospective wife. She had said that if cigarette packets have to carry health warnings so should prospective husbands. She felt any new girlfriend of Mark’s would have to realise that as far as the Everett’s were concerned no one would ever be suitable for their son.

  Fergal thundered down the stairs to meet his father. They exchanged awkward greetings, neither wanting to show how much the other was missed. Fergal grabbed a slice of toast and followed his father out the door, remembering to say goodbye to her which was muffled on account of the toast in his mouth.

  Angela waved until Mark’s car was out of sight. She remembered the old days when Fergal had wanted his mother to watch him play rugby. All she had longed for was the time when she would regain her Sunday mornings. Now her whole Sunday stretched out before her and it was at times like this that she felt most lonely. However there was no space for her in Mark’s car even if she wanted to go. She hoped that the new sports car he had lusted after for some time made him happy. Dad’s pulling wagon Fergal called it. When Mark had the fling that led to the divorce, he claimed he was going through a ‘mid life crisis’. Was she allowed one of those? When would she fit it in? She was always the sensible one in the family but now she just seemed to be a failure. What had she got to show for it? She was a middle aged single parent doing a dull part time job at the hospital. Her sisters were safe in their worlds, even if their worlds wouldn’t be her choice.

  She was sure that wherever Bernadette was she was not living a dull life. She would be l
iving it up in some exotic part of the world still surrounded by men. Bernadette was not made for nine- to- five drudgery. She wished she could see her sister again, whenever she mentioned this to Fran and Christina they thought she was mad and said she didn’t know Bernadette like they knew her. Well she was unlikely to get to know her now, but that didn’t stop her wishing she could. Bernadette was always a rebel she would understand why she had not tolerated Mark’s behaviour ‘for the sake of your child’ as her mother had said. Even Christina had spoken about ‘putting up and shutting up’. Angela made herself a cup of coffee and settled down to ‘phone her sisters. She glanced at the clock 9 am, too soon to ring Christina who would still be asleep, recovering from one of her and Giles’ networking dinner parties.

  ‘Is that Sister Frances?’

  ‘Yes this is Sister Frances at the Convent of the devotion to chocolate.’

  ‘It’s Sister Angela from the Convent of the divorced and desperate.’

  Even though both sisters were in their forties, the banter from school days stuck with them. Christina never joined in, claiming that she still had nightmares about her convent days.

  ‘Hi Babby. Has the old gizzard picked Fergal up?’

  ‘Yes they’ve just left. How’s life?’

  ‘Fabulous darling, Dave’s just told me he’s invited a couple he met in the pub last night for lunch and Celeste has told me she needs a mouse costume for her school play.’

  ‘Fran you’ve nothing else to do with your time have you now?’

  Angela as a working mother, firmly believed in the principle of if you want something doing ask a busy person.

  ‘Here she goes, listen do you want something, is that why you’re ringing me?’

  ‘Have you remembered it’s Mammy’s birthday on the 15th?’

  ‘Jesus I had, but she rang me yesterday herself and dropped lots of very unsubtle hints. It’s her 85th so much for you saying she’d go quickly after Daddy.’

  ‘Fran you’re wicked, I think we should sort out a date for us all to go down to see her. It’s what she’ll expect. Just us girls and the kids I mean, we don’t need to drag Dave and Giles down with us.’

  ‘As long as we bring the food, you know what she’s like, always trying to put me on diets.’

  ‘Not as if you need one, is it Fran.’

  ‘Just knowing how embarrassing it must be for you having a sister who is fat, is a great incentive to pig myself.’

  ‘You’ve always been an embarrassment, even when you were stick thin.’

  ‘Listen, do you think Christina will come?’

  ‘You mean ‘Maureen you’ll always be Maureen to me’ as Mammy says. Well I’m going to ask her anyway, it’s about time she shared more of the burden with us.’

  ‘Angela you’re beginning to sound like Mammy, ‘ and after all the sacrifices I made for you’. ’ You know they say you grow more like your mother the older you get.’

  ‘Well God help us is all I can say.’

  ‘What are we going to give her as a present?’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘Angela you’re better at that sort of thing than me. I’d buy her a big box of chocolates and then help her eat most of them.’

  ‘Anyway I’ll let you go you’ve got guests for lunch.’

  ‘That! Oh I told Dave to cook it himself, he invited them.’

  Angela checked her watch, 9.30am; she would email Christina and inform her of the birthday plans. Then it would then be up to her, she was not going to cajole her.

  Christina had replied by late afternoon, no doubt after she had woken up, eaten a leisurely breakfast and read the papers. Angela sometimes felt envious of her sister’s lifestyle. Christina was a good advert for being childless, she looked much younger than 52 with the time and money to indulge herself in regular facials and trips to the health spa. Angela had wanted wanted a different life a wedding, a husband and children. She had just wanted to be like everyone else.

  Christina’s reply was short and to the point, ‘I’ll be there, she won’t live forever. If you buy the present I will contribute £10.’

  Angela had stripped the beds done several loads of washing and had cleaned the house by the time she received Christina’s reply. She would sit down and think about a suitable present for their mother, which both Frances and Christina assumed she would buy, once she had sorted Fergal’s uniform and packed his sports bag.