Nobody had actually told her yet.
‘If you’d like me to . . .?’ Chicky began.
‘No, I’ll call her myself,’ Rigger said. He went away from the group and dialled his mother’s number.
‘Oh, Rigger?’ She sounded tired, but then she probably was tired. Who knew how many cleaning jobs she had taken on these days.
‘I thought you’d want to know. The babies are here: a boy and a girl.’
‘That’s good news. Is Carmel all right?’
‘Yes, she’s fine. It all happened very quickly and the children are perfect. Perfect. They weighed four and a half pounds each. They’re beautiful, Mam.’
‘I’m sure they are.’ Her voice still flat rather than excited.
‘Mam, when I was being born, was it quick or did it take a long time?’
‘It took a long time.’
‘And were you all on your own in a hospital?’
‘Well, there were nurses around and other mothers having babies.’
‘But there was nobody of your own with you?’
‘No. What does it matter now? It’s long ago.’
‘It must have been terrible for you.’
There was a silence.
‘We are going to call them Rosie and Macken,’ he said.
‘That will be nice.’
‘You did say you didn’t want us to call her Nuala.’
‘Yes I did, Rigger, and I meant it. Stop apologising. Rosie is fine.’
‘She’s going to run the world, Mam. Her and her brother.’
‘Yes, of course.’
And then she was gone.
What kind of woman could care so little about the birth of grandchildren? It wasn’t normal. But then, since that night after the episode in Malone’s butcher’s shop, Mam had not been normal. Had he in fact driven her mad?
Rigger would not allow it to get him down. This was the best day of his life.
It would not be ruined.
There was no shortage of people to help with the twins, and the babies grew to feel equally at home in their own house and in the big house. They would sleep in their pram while Chicky and Carmel went through catalogues and fabric samples at the kitchen table. Or if everyone was out, Miss Queenie sat there staring into the two little faces. And occasionally picking Gloria up on to her lap in case the cat felt jealous.
Nasey announced that he was going to get married in Dublin to a really wonderful woman called Irene. He hoped that Rigger and Carmel would come to his wedding.
They discussed it. They didn’t want to leave home, and yet they wanted to be there to support Nasey as he had them. They were also dying to see this Irene. They had thought Nasey was well beyond romance. It would be the ideal way for them to meet Nuala on neutral ground.
‘She’ll be bowled over when she sees the children,’ Rigger said.
‘We can’t take Rosie and Macken.’
‘We can’t leave them.’
‘Yes we can. For one night. Chicky and Miss Queenie will look after them. My mother will. There’s a dozen people who will.’
‘But I want her to meet them.’ Rigger sounded like a six-year-old.
‘Yes, when she is ready she’ll meet them. She’s not ready yet. Anyway, it would be making us centre stage at the wedding with our twin babies. It’s Nasey and Irene’s day.’
He saw it was sensible but his heart was heavy at the mother who couldn’t reach out in such a little way. He knew that Carmel was right. Not this time: it was enough that he would see his mother again. Things must be done in stages.
When Rigger saw his mother, he hardly recognised her. She seemed to have aged greatly. There were lines in her face that he never remembered and she walked with a stoop.
Could all this have happened in such a short time?
Nuala was perfectly polite to Carmel but there was a distance about her that was almost frightening. During the party in the pub, Rigger pulled his cousin Dingo aside.
‘Tell me what’s wrong with my mam? She’s not herself.’
‘She’s been that way for a good bit,’ Dingo said.
‘What way? Like only half listening?’
‘Sort of not there. Nasey says it was all the shock of . . . Well, whatever it was back then.’
Dingo didn’t want to rake up bad memories.
‘But she must be over that now,’ Rigger cried. ‘Things are different now.’
‘She felt she made a total bags of raising you. That’s what Nasey says. He can’t persuade her that it’s nonsense.’
‘What can I do to tell her?’
‘It’s got to do with the way she feels inside. You know, like those people who think they’re fat and starve themselves to death. They have no image of themselves. She probably needs a shrink,’ Dingo said.
‘God Almighty, isn’t that desperate.’ Rigger was appalled.
‘Here, I don’t want you getting all down about it. It’s Nasey and Irene’s day. Stick a smile on your face, will you.’
So Rigger stuck a smile on his face and even managed to sing ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’, which went down very well.
And when Nasey was making his speech he put an arm around Rigger and Dingo’s shoulders and said that he had the two finest nephews in the western world.
Rigger looked over at his mother. Her face was empty.
Carmel noticed everything and understood most things without having them explained to her. It didn’t take her long to get the picture here. She had talked to her mother-in-law about subjects far removed from Rigger and the family. One by one, however, the topics she raised seemed to run into the ground. No use asking about television programmes – Nuala didn’t own a television set. She rarely went to the cinema. There wasn’t time to read. She admitted that it was harder to get decent jobs because of the recession. Nobody paid you more than the minimum wage. Women didn’t give you their clothes like they used to, they sold them online nowadays.
She answered questions as if it was an interview in a Garda station. There was none of the normal to and fro of a conversation. Apart from hoping that all was well back at Stoneybridge, she asked nothing about her grandson and granddaughter.
‘Do you take a drink at all, Nuala?’ Carmel asked.
‘No, no, I never got in the habit of it.’
‘Rigger doesn’t drink either, which makes him fairly unusual in our part of the world, but I do love the occasional glass of wine. Can I get you one?’
‘If you’d like to, yes,’ said Nuala.
Carmel brought two glasses of white wine back to their little table.
‘Good luck to the bride and groom,’ she said.
‘Indeed.’ Nuala raised her glass mechanically.
‘I’m taking a big risk here but I’m just going to tell you something. I love Rigger with all my heart. He is the perfect husband and the perfect father. You won’t know this because you haven’t seen him in that role. He works all the hours God sends. There is one thing he is not – he is not a son. He is nobody’s son. As a father himself now he would love to know something about his own father, but he wouldn’t ask you any questions about him, not in a million years. But much more important than anything, he wants his mother back. He wants so much to share this good life he has now with you.’
Nuala looked at her, astonished.
‘I haven’t gone away,’ she said.
‘Please, let me finish then I promise that I will never mention this again. He’s just not complete. You are the one piece of the jigsaw that’s missing. He never thinks that you were a bad mother. Every single thing he says about you is high praise. I would die happy if I thought my son Macken would talk so well of me. You don’t have to do anything at all, Nuala. You can forget I said any of this. I won’t tell him. He wanted to bring the children up to meet you but I asked him not to. I said that one day they would meet their grandmother Nuala, but not until she was ready. You say you feel guilty about letting him run wild. He now feels guilty that he has made you unbalanced and ruined your life.’
‘Unbalanced?’
‘Well, that’s what it is, isn’t it? You’ve got the balance wrong. You need someone to help you to mend the scales. Like as if you had a broken leg. It wouldn’t heal without someone to set it.’
‘I don’t need a doctor.’
‘We all need a doctor some time along the way. Why don’t you try it? If it’s no use then it’s no use, but at least you gave it a try.’
Nuala said nothing.
So Carmel decided to finish. ‘We will always be ready. And he needs to be a son again. That’s all I wanted to say, really.’ She hardly dared to look Nuala in the eye. She had gone too far.
The woman was not well. She lived in a world of her own. All Carmel had done was to annoy her and upset her further.
But she thought that the lined, strained face had changed slightly. Nuala still said nothing but she definitely looked less tense, her hands didn’t grip the edge of the table so hard.
Was this fanciful, or was it real?
Carmel knew she had already said more than enough. She would not speak any more. She sat very still for what seemed a very long time but was probably only a minute or two. Around them, the wedding party was singing ‘Stand By Your Man’.
Rigger came towards them.
‘They’ll be going in a few minutes, do you want some confetti to throw?’ he asked.
Now Carmel realised that Nuala’s face had changed. She was definitely looking at the eager, happy face of her son with different eyes. It was as if she could see that this was not someone she had destroyed but a proud, happy man secure in himself and steady as a rock.
‘Sit down for a minute, Rigger, knowing Nasey it will be hours before they get going.’
‘Sure.’ He was surprised and pleased.
‘I was just wondering who was looking after Rosie and Macken tonight?’ she asked.
‘Chicky and Miss Queenie. They have our mobile number. Chicky rang an hour ago to say they were all asleep except herself – Miss Queenie, the twins, Gloria . . .’
‘Gloria?’
‘The cat. She’s a heavy sleeper.’
‘The cat wouldn’t sleep in the pram?’ Nuala looked anxious.
‘No, Gloria’s much too lazy to get up to that height. Anyway, they’re watched all the time.’
‘Good, good.’
‘Chicky wanted to know how it was all going,’ Rigger said.
‘And what did you tell her?’ His mother was actually asking a question, looking for information.
‘I said it was a great wedding,’ Rigger reported.
‘Will you be talking to her again tonight?’ Nuala wondered.
‘Oh, you can be sure we will. This is the first night we’ve ever left them,’ Carmel said.
‘Could you say to her that she’s to keep a sharp eye on them, and to tell them that I’ll be coming to see them myself before too long? I’ve just got a few medical things to sort out but then I’ll be there.’
Rigger struggled for the words. He was determined not to break the mood. This was not a time for hugs and tears.
‘And won’t they be so pleased to hear that, Mam,’ he said. ‘So very pleased.’
Just then there was a rush to the door. The bride and groom really were leaving.
Carmel looked at Nuala. She wanted to tell her that with those words she had made her son feel complete.
But there was no need. Nuala knew.