Mum, who’d stretched up like a cobra, checking out the Standers, turned to me – to cuff me for talking, so I thought –but she whispered, ‘That last fella was in Twenty-One Jump Street. Got taken out by the mob.’
Another few people stood up and got clapped. Beside me, I felt Mum get twitchy. ‘No,’ I begged. ‘No.’
‘We’re visitors,’ she hissed. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’
‘No,’ I repeated.
But, dragging Dad and me with her, she was rising to her feet and smiling around graciously. ‘We’re from Ireland,’ she told the congregation, meaning: We’re REAL Catholics.
Everyone put their hands together for the über-Catholics from Ireland and then I was allowed to sit down again, my face burning.
Next we had to turn to the person on our right and greet them. Dad turned to Mum, Mum turned to me, I turned to Emily, and Emily, who was at the end of the row, refused to look across the aisle.
Then it started. My clearest memory of Mass in Ireland was of a miserable priest droning at a quarter-full church, ‘Blah blah blah, sinners, blah blah blah, soul black with sin, blah blah blah, burn in hell…’ But this was more like Mass: the Musical Lots of singing and melodramatic acting-out of the readings – I suppose you never knew when a hot-shot producer might be in the audience – sorry, I mean congregation.
I wasn’t exactly comfortable with so much unbridled zeal, and Emily and I nudged each other and sniggered a fair bit, as if we were nine years old. The upbeat and celebratory mood reached its cringy zenith in the Lord’s Prayer, where the people in each row held hands and sang. Emily smiled smugly, letting her end-of-aisle hand swing emptily. But her smirk turned sickly as the man across the way stretched out his hand and clasped hers, pulling her out of her seat and me with her. In the row in front of me, a slender young man with a disproportionately large bottom sang the whole thing into his girlfriend’s avid eyes. It was creepy.
At a certain sentence (‘And lead us not into temptation,’ if I remember correctly), we had to raise our joined hands above our heads. I couldn’t help thinking that if you’d had a camera on a pulley above the crowds it would’ve been a really good shot, like a Busby Berkeley musical. Maybe.
No sooner was the mortification of the Lord’s Prayer over than the padre uttered words that struck new dread into my heart. ‘Let us offer each other the sign of peace.’ All of a sudden, I remembered that this was the main reason I’d stopped going to Mass. It’s an awful thing to do to people, make them be affectionate, especially on a Sunday morning. In Ireland we do the bare minimum – touch paws, mutter ‘Peace be with you,’ and defiantly refuse to make eye contact. But I suspected we wouldn’t get away with that here, and sure enough, we ended up practically having sex with the people around us. People were stepping out of their pews, confidently crossing the aisle and giving bear hugs all round. It was horrific. I got smothered into the shoulder of the boy with the big arse who’d sung to his girlfriend.
But then the priest invited us to bow our heads and pray for our ‘special intentions’, and the we’re-only-here-for-the-laugh air abruptly lifted from Emily and me. Emily buried her face in her hands; no prizes for guessing what she was praying for. And me? I knew what I wanted, but I was afraid to pray for it.
The comfort I’d hoped to get from going to Mass evaded me, and for the rest of the day a nervy excitement hummed within me. When the Goatee Boys invited everyone over for an evening barbecue, I had to take Emily aside. ‘This barbecue tonight,’ I said, flooded with anxiety in case it scuppered my plans, ‘I can’t go, I’m sorry’
‘Why, what are you doing?’ Emily was alert – and alarmed.
‘I’m going to see Shay.’
‘On your own?’
I assented.
‘But Maggie, he’s married! What are you at?’
‘I just want to talk to him. I want…’ I picked a word I’d heard on Oprah, ‘… closure.’
In exasperation she said, ‘We all have ex-boyfriends – it’s called life. We can’t go tracking them down and getting closure off every one of them. We just live with it. If you’d had more boyfriends in your time you’d know all this.’
‘He’s not just an ex-boyfriend,’ I said. ‘And you know it.’
She nodded. I had her there. ‘But I still don’t think you should see him,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to help.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ I said, then went to my bedroom to try on everything I owned several times.
The Mondrian is another of those hotels where you’d get snow-blindness; any colour so long as it’s white. The lobby was overrun with chiselled, bronzed men in Armani suits, and they were just the staff. Kitchen porters, probably. I jostled my way through them to the desk clerk and asked him to call Shay’s room.
‘Your name, please?’
‘Maggie… um… Walsh.’
‘I have a message for you.’ He handed me an envelope.
I tore it open. It was a slip of paper, with a typewritten message. ‘Had to go out. Sorry. Shay.’
He wasn’t there. The fucker. My tense anticipation flipped into hollowed-out let-down and I was so disappointed I wanted to kick something. I’d dressed so carefully, I’d spent so long taming my hair, I’d been so buzzy and hopeful. All for nothing.
Well, what did you expect? I asked myself bitterly. What did you expect after the last time?
I am bad at being bad. Terrible, actually. The one time I tried shoplifting, I got caught. The one time I sneaked in Shay Delaney when I was babysitting for Damien, I got caught. The day I bunked off school to go to the snooker with Dad, I got caught. The time I threw the snail at the Nissan Micra packed with nuns, they pulled over, got out and told me off. So you’d think that that would have taught me that I couldn’t get away with stepping out of line. But it didn’t, and the one time I had unprotected sex with Shay Delaney, I got pregnant.
Perhaps it wasn’t the only time it was unprotected – the way we had sex was often so fraught and hurried that slips and spills might have happened anyway. But there was one definite occasion when we didn’t have a condom and we couldn’t help ourselves. Shay had promised that he’d pull out in time, but he didn’t and somehow I ended up assuring him that we’d be OK, as if my love for him was so powerful I could tame my body into obedience.
Another few people stood up and got clapped. Beside me, I felt Mum get twitchy. ‘No,’ I begged. ‘No.’
‘We’re visitors,’ she hissed. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’
‘No,’ I repeated.
But, dragging Dad and me with her, she was rising to her feet and smiling around graciously. ‘We’re from Ireland,’ she told the congregation, meaning: We’re REAL Catholics.
Everyone put their hands together for the über-Catholics from Ireland and then I was allowed to sit down again, my face burning.
Next we had to turn to the person on our right and greet them. Dad turned to Mum, Mum turned to me, I turned to Emily, and Emily, who was at the end of the row, refused to look across the aisle.
Then it started. My clearest memory of Mass in Ireland was of a miserable priest droning at a quarter-full church, ‘Blah blah blah, sinners, blah blah blah, soul black with sin, blah blah blah, burn in hell…’ But this was more like Mass: the Musical Lots of singing and melodramatic acting-out of the readings – I suppose you never knew when a hot-shot producer might be in the audience – sorry, I mean congregation.
I wasn’t exactly comfortable with so much unbridled zeal, and Emily and I nudged each other and sniggered a fair bit, as if we were nine years old. The upbeat and celebratory mood reached its cringy zenith in the Lord’s Prayer, where the people in each row held hands and sang. Emily smiled smugly, letting her end-of-aisle hand swing emptily. But her smirk turned sickly as the man across the way stretched out his hand and clasped hers, pulling her out of her seat and me with her. In the row in front of me, a slender young man with a disproportionately large bottom sang the whole thing into his girlfriend’s avid eyes. It was creepy.
At a certain sentence (‘And lead us not into temptation,’ if I remember correctly), we had to raise our joined hands above our heads. I couldn’t help thinking that if you’d had a camera on a pulley above the crowds it would’ve been a really good shot, like a Busby Berkeley musical. Maybe.
No sooner was the mortification of the Lord’s Prayer over than the padre uttered words that struck new dread into my heart. ‘Let us offer each other the sign of peace.’ All of a sudden, I remembered that this was the main reason I’d stopped going to Mass. It’s an awful thing to do to people, make them be affectionate, especially on a Sunday morning. In Ireland we do the bare minimum – touch paws, mutter ‘Peace be with you,’ and defiantly refuse to make eye contact. But I suspected we wouldn’t get away with that here, and sure enough, we ended up practically having sex with the people around us. People were stepping out of their pews, confidently crossing the aisle and giving bear hugs all round. It was horrific. I got smothered into the shoulder of the boy with the big arse who’d sung to his girlfriend.
But then the priest invited us to bow our heads and pray for our ‘special intentions’, and the we’re-only-here-for-the-laugh air abruptly lifted from Emily and me. Emily buried her face in her hands; no prizes for guessing what she was praying for. And me? I knew what I wanted, but I was afraid to pray for it.
The comfort I’d hoped to get from going to Mass evaded me, and for the rest of the day a nervy excitement hummed within me. When the Goatee Boys invited everyone over for an evening barbecue, I had to take Emily aside. ‘This barbecue tonight,’ I said, flooded with anxiety in case it scuppered my plans, ‘I can’t go, I’m sorry’
‘Why, what are you doing?’ Emily was alert – and alarmed.
‘I’m going to see Shay.’
‘On your own?’
I assented.
‘But Maggie, he’s married! What are you at?’
‘I just want to talk to him. I want…’ I picked a word I’d heard on Oprah, ‘… closure.’
In exasperation she said, ‘We all have ex-boyfriends – it’s called life. We can’t go tracking them down and getting closure off every one of them. We just live with it. If you’d had more boyfriends in your time you’d know all this.’
‘He’s not just an ex-boyfriend,’ I said. ‘And you know it.’
She nodded. I had her there. ‘But I still don’t think you should see him,’ she said. ‘It’s not going to help.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ I said, then went to my bedroom to try on everything I owned several times.
The Mondrian is another of those hotels where you’d get snow-blindness; any colour so long as it’s white. The lobby was overrun with chiselled, bronzed men in Armani suits, and they were just the staff. Kitchen porters, probably. I jostled my way through them to the desk clerk and asked him to call Shay’s room.
‘Your name, please?’
‘Maggie… um… Walsh.’
‘I have a message for you.’ He handed me an envelope.
I tore it open. It was a slip of paper, with a typewritten message. ‘Had to go out. Sorry. Shay.’
He wasn’t there. The fucker. My tense anticipation flipped into hollowed-out let-down and I was so disappointed I wanted to kick something. I’d dressed so carefully, I’d spent so long taming my hair, I’d been so buzzy and hopeful. All for nothing.
Well, what did you expect? I asked myself bitterly. What did you expect after the last time?
I am bad at being bad. Terrible, actually. The one time I tried shoplifting, I got caught. The one time I sneaked in Shay Delaney when I was babysitting for Damien, I got caught. The day I bunked off school to go to the snooker with Dad, I got caught. The time I threw the snail at the Nissan Micra packed with nuns, they pulled over, got out and told me off. So you’d think that that would have taught me that I couldn’t get away with stepping out of line. But it didn’t, and the one time I had unprotected sex with Shay Delaney, I got pregnant.
Perhaps it wasn’t the only time it was unprotected – the way we had sex was often so fraught and hurried that slips and spills might have happened anyway. But there was one definite occasion when we didn’t have a condom and we couldn’t help ourselves. Shay had promised that he’d pull out in time, but he didn’t and somehow I ended up assuring him that we’d be OK, as if my love for him was so powerful I could tame my body into obedience.
