‘Our society has a pervasive lack of respect for us.’
That might well be true of other single women, but you’d never make that mistake with Derry.
‘Dominik rang me first,’ I say, ‘and I’m married.’ Well, I am. Technically.
‘I could be married too,’ she says.
She probably could. She’s quick-witted, charismatic and successful. Also, scrubs up well. In her natural state she looks like all of us O’Connells with our pale skin, light-coloured eyes and tendency to buttiness. (Urzula says we’re the most Celtic-looking family she’s ever seen.) But via vampire facials, laser resurfacing, silhouette lifts and whatever else you’re having, Derry – a vital four inches taller and ten pounds lighter than me – has turbocharged her natural assets into impressive hotness. (Yes, I’m jealous: my funds have never even run to a jab of Botox.)
‘You could be married,’ I say. ‘Except if you go round dumping men because they say “ice and a slice” or call ketchup “catsup” –’
‘So I should put up with some gobshite who gets on my nerves just so I won’t be treated like a second-class citizen?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, and we both laugh.
‘WHERE’S YOUR MOTHER?’ Pop bellows from the front room. ‘Give me my stick. I’m going out to look for her.’
‘Take these.’ I shove my armload of pizzas at Derry, pick up Pop’s stick from the hallstand, race through the kitchen into the scullery and shove the stick into the chest freezer. He’s not leaving this house. One missing parent is bad enough. I couldn’t cope with two.
I stick my head into the front room and call, ‘She’ll be home soon, Pop, don’t worry.’
‘I know you!’ His angry expression vanishes. ‘Are you my sister?’
‘No, Pop, I’m Amy, your daughter.’
‘Away to feck! I’ve no children!’
Car doors are slamming outside.
‘It’s Joe,’ Derry calls, before I start thinking it’s Mum.
Our elder brother Joe, his wife Siena, and their three sons, Finn (eight), Pip (six) and Kit (four) pile into the hall. Immediately the boys swarm through the house and into Pop’s domain. Against a backdrop of Pop shouting, ‘PUT THAT FECKEN’ DOWN, YOU LITTLE SCUT!’ I explain the crisis to Joe and Siena.
‘She said she was going on the piss?’ Joe can hardly believe it.
‘So Dominik said,’ Derry says.
‘YOU’LL GET FECKEN’ ELECTROCUTED AND IT’LL BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!’
Joe insists on viewing Mum’s mobile – which is indeed sitting on the kitchen dresser, just like Dominik had said. ‘That’s it, all right,’ he agrees.
‘What should we do?’ I ask.
‘What do you think we should do?’ he counters.
This needs to be said: Joe is useless. Charming, well travelled, but useless.
‘Look, I’ll get the dinner on,’ Siena says. ‘What do I do?’
If I’m to be frank, Siena is also useless. They are the Useless Family. They get by on their looks.
‘Just take the packaging off and sling them into the Aga, as many as you can fit,’ I say.
‘STOP CHANGING THE STATIONS! STOP CHANGING THE STATIONS!’
The front door opens again and my heart lifts. But as quickly as hope flares, it dies: it isn’t Mum. It’s Neeve, my eldest daughter, the light of my life and the scourge of my heart.
‘What’s up?’ She stands in the hall and peels off her jacket. She’s tiny – barely taller than five foot – and very curvy: buxom, neat waist and round little bum. It’s exactly the body-shape I had when I was twenty-two but in those days I’d thought I was fat. I wasn’t – hindsight is a great thing. And maybe in twenty-two years’ time I’ll look back at the cut of me now and think I was pretty hot. Frankly, I can’t imagine it, but I know that sort of thing happens. And not just regarding the size of my butt. I mean, eight months ago I’d thought my life was nothing special but now I’d give all that I own to return and savour every securely married second of it. As that song tells us, we never know what we’ve got till it’s gone.
‘Where’s Granny?’ Neeve gathers her red-gold hair up into a thick, high ponytail and narrows her glinting eyes around the hallway. She may have got her body-type from me but the rest of her is pure Richie Aldin. ‘I’ve stuff for her.’ She indicates a bag crammed to bursting with new make-up.
It is absolute torture to watch as envelopes of cosmetics arrive at our house hoping to feature in Bitch, Please, Neeve’s YouTube channel. If the contents are any good she keeps them, and if they aren’t, they’re rerouted to the deserving poor. I’m rarely among their number.
‘Granny’s missing,’ I say. ‘Dominik says she went on the piss.’
‘The piss?’ Neeve’s demeanour, when she’s talking to me, is set permanently to scornful, but she truly outdoes herself this time. ‘Granny? Is he mental?’
‘Lovely, don’t say “mental”.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the mentallers might take offence and –’
‘HERE’S KIARA! HERE’S KIARA! HERE’S KIARA!’ Finn, Pip and Kit explode into the hall to welcome my other daughter, who has just arrived at the front door. She’s in her school uniform. Her shirt has come free from her waistband, her bitten nails are painted with yellow fluorescent pen and she’s bent almost double from the weight of books in her backpack.
‘Guys!’ She shrugs off the backpack, opens her arms wide to the boys and they start clambering up her, as if she’s a climbing frame. She’s the sweet-tempered yin to Neeve’s snarky yang, proof that it’s nature, not nurture. My two girls have very different fathers and very different personalities. Neeve is tricky (at least, she is with Hugh and me: I notice she manages to be nicer to the rest of the world) and Kiara is a sweetie.
‘BRING ME MY STICK! I’M GOING OUT TO LOOK FOR MY WIFE!’
‘Derry?’ I follow the shoal of people into the front room. ‘We should ring the police.’
‘Oka– Hold on! Car outside! It’s Declyn!’
Five years younger than me, Declyn is the baby of the O’Connell family. Everyone – Derry, Neeve, Kiara, Joe, Siena, Finn, Pip and Kit – flows around Pop’s chair and surges to the rattly old bay window.
‘HAS HE THE CHILD?’
‘He’s getting out,’ someone says. ‘It’s just him. Awwwww!’
Sixteen months ago Declyn and his husband Hayden had Baby Maisey (via a surrogate, obviously) and we’re all wild about her. But it means that Declyn without Baby Maisey has no cachet whatsoever.
‘HAS HE THE CHILD? WOULD SOMEONE FECKEN’ ANSWER ME!’
‘No, Pop, he hasn’t,’ I say.
‘WELL, SHIT ON IT ANYWAY.’
‘Pop, we’re all here beside you. There’s no need to shout.’
‘I’M NOT SHOUTING.’
‘Wait!’ Derry exclaimed. ‘He’s getting something out of the back seat!’
‘Could be his man-bag,’ Finn says.
Holding our collective breath, we watch Declyn fiddling around – and a huge cheer goes up when he emerges with Baby Maisey in a car-chair.
Everyone is delighted – everyone except Kit. Quietly he says to me, ‘I hate Baby Maisey.’
‘What? Why?’
‘I used to be the youngest one. I was the favourite.’
I nod. ‘Life is hard, little fella.’
‘I used to be cute.’
‘You’re still cute.’
He gives me a very grown-up look. ‘Don’t,’ he says.
We mass towards the door, and as soon as Declyn sets foot into the hall, the car-seat containing Maisey is ferried into the front room where she’s rolled on the floor and smothered in kisses by her cousins.