But I was happy to see them, happier than I’d expected, and I had a moment of feeling protected – Mum and Dad were here, they’d mind me. But something about Dad’s thin, white and blue legs was telling me it wasn’t fair to expect to be taken care of. Instead, because I’d been in LA for three weeks already, I’d be responsible for their welfare – even though I hardly felt able to take care of myself, never mind the four of them.
With much barking of knuckles I got their huge amounts of luggage into Emily’s block of flats and, under a blue, blue sky, we headed for the freeway to Santa Monica while they discussed my new look.
‘Your hair hasn’t been that short ever.’
‘It must have been short when she was born,’ Helen said.
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘How would you know? You weren’t there. I have to say, Maggie,’ Helen mused, ‘you look great. Your hair really suits you that length and you’ve a gorgeous tan.’
I waited for the catch. However, the trap wasn’t for me, but for Mum.
‘A gorgeous tan,’ Helen repeated. ‘Nearly as gorgeous as Mum’s. Hasn’t she a great colour?’ she asked unkindly. ‘Yeah, lovely.’
‘I’ve been sitting out in the garden at home,’ Mum said.
‘Between showers,’ Helen twisted the knife.
‘The Irish sun can be very strong,’ Mum persisted.
‘Must be, if you can get that sort of colour when it’s pissing down.’
The sniping continued until – a mere six blocks from Emily’s – we got to the Ocean View hotel. To my surprise, it was accurately named: you could actually view the ocean from it. All that separated it from the vast, twinkling expanse of the Pacific was a road, a line of palm trees and a cycle path.
‘Look,’ Anna said, all excited, as two six-foot, toffee-tanned, pony-tailed blondes rollerbladed past. ‘Welcome to California.’
Inside, the hotel was nice and bright and had a swimming pool and the advertised umbrellas, but Mum seemed edgy and distracted, moving around her room, opening drawers, touching things. She only relaxed when she discovered that they hadn’t hoovered under the bed. She’s a bad housekeeper herself and she hates feeling out-cleaned.
‘It’s quite nice here,’ she finally conceded.
Helen was less impressed. ‘We came this close,’ she held up her thumb and forefinger, ‘to staying in the Chateau Marmont.’
‘She told me it was a convent,’ Mum said indignantly. ‘If it wasn’t for Nuala Freeman, who told me the kind of place it really was –’
‘Glamorous,’ Helen interrupted. ‘Full of the stars of screen and stage. It would have been great.’
One of the reasons they – at least Mum and Dad – had come to LA was out of concern for me, and they hadn’t even unpacked before I was called to provide an account of my emotional health. Somehow, Mum had backed me into a corner, thrust a concerned (and orange) face at me and asked softly, ‘How’ve you been these past few weeks, since… you know?’ Up close, her neck was streaky, but her eyes were kind and I wondered where I should start – ‘I found out for sure that my husband has someone else, then I had mild bondage with a big-nosed man who didn’t call me, then I ran into Shay first-cut-is-the-deepest Delaney again, who did his best to ignore me even though we’ll always be linked, at least in my head, then I had sex with a woman with breast implants and she rejected me too. I’ve been to very dark places and behaved so out of character that I’ve scared myself, and I’m still no wiser about what’s going to become of me and my life and my future and my past.’ So which bit should I tell her first? I mused. The lesbian sex? Being tied to Troy’s bedpost?
‘I’m fine, Mum,’ I said weakly.
Her loving expression remained on me and I noticed she’d missed a patch just below her ear. For some reason this squeezed me with hopeless tenderness.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thank God,’ she sighed. I was afraid you might go… a bit mad for yourself.’
‘What news from home?’ I was keen to change the subject.
‘Well, you heard about us being broken into, did you?’
‘No! What happened?’
Moving her orange face even closer to mine, Mum told the story. Apparently, one morning as Dad was going downstairs to make Mum’s cup of tea, he met an unfamiliar youth climbing the stairs. ‘Morning,’ Dad said, because an unfamiliar youth climbing the stairs was, in itself, nothing unusual. With five daughters, the chances of this sort of encounter of a morning were high. But then Dad noticed that the youth had two of his golf trophies under his arm. And that the microwave was by the front door. And so was the telly. ‘What are you doing with my golf trophies?’ Dad had asked uncertainly.
‘Ah fuck!’ the youth had said moodily, bouncing the trophies on to the ground, bolting down the stairs and out into the wide, blue yonder. It was then that Dad saw the key still in the front door – left there when Helen had come home the previous night. The youth was no swain of one of his daughter’s, but an opportunistic, early-morning burglar.
‘It was the mercy of God that your father got up,’ Mum said. ‘Or else the bed would have been stolen out from under us. And another night Anna came home scuttered, put some beans on the ring, then fell asleep.’
‘I was still there when that happened.’
‘Oh, were you? We could all have been burnt in our beds. Mind you,’ she said ruminatively, ‘I suppose we could count ourselves lucky to still have beds to be burnt in, the way things were going… Now tell me,’ abruptly Mum changed the subject and dropped her voice to a hiss. ‘Is my face a bit much?’
‘No, Mum, you’re gorgeous.’
‘Only it’s fake, you see. I was putting it on and nothing was happening and I put some more on, a good handful, and when I looked in the mirror this morning this is what I was greeted with.’
‘But you know the colour doesn’t come up immediately, Mum, we keep telling you, you have to wait.’
‘I know, but I’m always afraid that I haven’t put on enough. Anyway, I think it’s marvellous to have a bit of a colour, but Helen has been at me, making fun.’ She paused, swallowed, then made herself continue. ‘She’s been calling me Outspan Head. Kept telling the air hostesses, “Outspan Head can’t work her earphones, Outspan Head wants another blanket.” She even told the man at immigration that that was my real name, not the name on my passport, and it wasn’t funny, they can’t take a joke, those men.’
With much barking of knuckles I got their huge amounts of luggage into Emily’s block of flats and, under a blue, blue sky, we headed for the freeway to Santa Monica while they discussed my new look.
‘Your hair hasn’t been that short ever.’
‘It must have been short when she was born,’ Helen said.
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘How would you know? You weren’t there. I have to say, Maggie,’ Helen mused, ‘you look great. Your hair really suits you that length and you’ve a gorgeous tan.’
I waited for the catch. However, the trap wasn’t for me, but for Mum.
‘A gorgeous tan,’ Helen repeated. ‘Nearly as gorgeous as Mum’s. Hasn’t she a great colour?’ she asked unkindly. ‘Yeah, lovely.’
‘I’ve been sitting out in the garden at home,’ Mum said.
‘Between showers,’ Helen twisted the knife.
‘The Irish sun can be very strong,’ Mum persisted.
‘Must be, if you can get that sort of colour when it’s pissing down.’
The sniping continued until – a mere six blocks from Emily’s – we got to the Ocean View hotel. To my surprise, it was accurately named: you could actually view the ocean from it. All that separated it from the vast, twinkling expanse of the Pacific was a road, a line of palm trees and a cycle path.
‘Look,’ Anna said, all excited, as two six-foot, toffee-tanned, pony-tailed blondes rollerbladed past. ‘Welcome to California.’
Inside, the hotel was nice and bright and had a swimming pool and the advertised umbrellas, but Mum seemed edgy and distracted, moving around her room, opening drawers, touching things. She only relaxed when she discovered that they hadn’t hoovered under the bed. She’s a bad housekeeper herself and she hates feeling out-cleaned.
‘It’s quite nice here,’ she finally conceded.
Helen was less impressed. ‘We came this close,’ she held up her thumb and forefinger, ‘to staying in the Chateau Marmont.’
‘She told me it was a convent,’ Mum said indignantly. ‘If it wasn’t for Nuala Freeman, who told me the kind of place it really was –’
‘Glamorous,’ Helen interrupted. ‘Full of the stars of screen and stage. It would have been great.’
One of the reasons they – at least Mum and Dad – had come to LA was out of concern for me, and they hadn’t even unpacked before I was called to provide an account of my emotional health. Somehow, Mum had backed me into a corner, thrust a concerned (and orange) face at me and asked softly, ‘How’ve you been these past few weeks, since… you know?’ Up close, her neck was streaky, but her eyes were kind and I wondered where I should start – ‘I found out for sure that my husband has someone else, then I had mild bondage with a big-nosed man who didn’t call me, then I ran into Shay first-cut-is-the-deepest Delaney again, who did his best to ignore me even though we’ll always be linked, at least in my head, then I had sex with a woman with breast implants and she rejected me too. I’ve been to very dark places and behaved so out of character that I’ve scared myself, and I’m still no wiser about what’s going to become of me and my life and my future and my past.’ So which bit should I tell her first? I mused. The lesbian sex? Being tied to Troy’s bedpost?
‘I’m fine, Mum,’ I said weakly.
Her loving expression remained on me and I noticed she’d missed a patch just below her ear. For some reason this squeezed me with hopeless tenderness.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thank God,’ she sighed. I was afraid you might go… a bit mad for yourself.’
‘What news from home?’ I was keen to change the subject.
‘Well, you heard about us being broken into, did you?’
‘No! What happened?’
Moving her orange face even closer to mine, Mum told the story. Apparently, one morning as Dad was going downstairs to make Mum’s cup of tea, he met an unfamiliar youth climbing the stairs. ‘Morning,’ Dad said, because an unfamiliar youth climbing the stairs was, in itself, nothing unusual. With five daughters, the chances of this sort of encounter of a morning were high. But then Dad noticed that the youth had two of his golf trophies under his arm. And that the microwave was by the front door. And so was the telly. ‘What are you doing with my golf trophies?’ Dad had asked uncertainly.
‘Ah fuck!’ the youth had said moodily, bouncing the trophies on to the ground, bolting down the stairs and out into the wide, blue yonder. It was then that Dad saw the key still in the front door – left there when Helen had come home the previous night. The youth was no swain of one of his daughter’s, but an opportunistic, early-morning burglar.
‘It was the mercy of God that your father got up,’ Mum said. ‘Or else the bed would have been stolen out from under us. And another night Anna came home scuttered, put some beans on the ring, then fell asleep.’
‘I was still there when that happened.’
‘Oh, were you? We could all have been burnt in our beds. Mind you,’ she said ruminatively, ‘I suppose we could count ourselves lucky to still have beds to be burnt in, the way things were going… Now tell me,’ abruptly Mum changed the subject and dropped her voice to a hiss. ‘Is my face a bit much?’
‘No, Mum, you’re gorgeous.’
‘Only it’s fake, you see. I was putting it on and nothing was happening and I put some more on, a good handful, and when I looked in the mirror this morning this is what I was greeted with.’
‘But you know the colour doesn’t come up immediately, Mum, we keep telling you, you have to wait.’
‘I know, but I’m always afraid that I haven’t put on enough. Anyway, I think it’s marvellous to have a bit of a colour, but Helen has been at me, making fun.’ She paused, swallowed, then made herself continue. ‘She’s been calling me Outspan Head. Kept telling the air hostesses, “Outspan Head can’t work her earphones, Outspan Head wants another blanket.” She even told the man at immigration that that was my real name, not the name on my passport, and it wasn’t funny, they can’t take a joke, those men.’
