Whose Life is it Anyway? (16 page)

Niamh O’Flaherty

The difference between men and women can be summed up perfectly using the example of showering.

When a woman takes a shower she

Takes off her clothes and divides them between the laundry baskets: white with pastel and black with dark colours. Sighing, she fishes out her husband’s black socks and transfers them to the correct basket.

When in the bathroom, she locks the door and examines herself in the mirror, sticking her stomach out and groaning at how fat she’s getting. She vows never to eat desserts again.

She gets into the shower and washes her hair with nutmeg and red earth shampoo, handmade by the indigenous people of Peru. Then she conditions it with nettle and mint conditioner, handmade by the war-torn refugees of Nicaragua. This must be left on for ten minutes.

She exfoliates her face with a cucumber and apricot scrub and washes her body with a poisonberry and red-currant moisturizing gel.

While waiting for the conditioner to work she shaves her legs and underarms with her husband’s razor.

Then she rinses off the conditioner and combs her hair.

She opens the shower door, reaches for a large towel and dries herself in the shower so that she doesn’t wet the bathroom floor.

She plucks her eyebrows, screeching with pain.

Finally she applies exorbitantly expensive French anti-cellulite cream to her dimpled legs and prays for a miracle.

When a man takes a shower he

Peels off his clothes and dumps them on the floor.

He walks into the bathroom and admires himself in the mirror, shadow-boxing.

He gets into the shower and fishes around for his crusty soap. He uses this to wash his hair, face, armpits, arse and penis, leaving pubic hair stuck to the bar.

He throws on some shaving cream and begins to shave, cursing his wife as he cuts his chin on the blunt blade.

After peeing in the shower he throws back the curtain and steps out, dripping, on to the floor.

He dries himself with a face towel and flexes his muscles in the misty mirror.

He walks out dripping all over the bedroom carpet.

He throws his wet towel on to the bed, sniffs the clothes he dumped on the floor, and if they don’t smell like stale fish, he puts them on again.

19

London, December 1985

With her baby looming, Siobhan turned into a monster. I’d like to say that marriage and impending motherhood made her calm and serene, but I’d be lying. My mother told me to bite my tongue because my sister’s hormones were all over the place: she didn’t mean to be a bitch, she just couldn’t help herself.

I had hoped she would stay in her one-bedroom flat in the garage, but although she had her own TV and bathroom she had no kitchen. Unfortunately I had to look at her grumpy face at mealtimes. Liam, who was supposed to be taking the brunt of her moods, was never at home. He spent twelve hours a day studying to make sure he got into college.

The pressure was on, now he had a family to support. When he wasn’t studying, he was on the building sites, working for my father. The result was that I was on the receiving end of my sister’s temper, and I was fed up.

Apparently, being pregnant meant you could not get up off the couch at any time, for any reason, cried if you didn’t get your own way, had full custody of the TV remote control, demanded that trips be made to the shops for your cravings, which ranged from Curly Wurlies to salt-and-vinegar crisps, and were excused from helping with household chores and generally for being a contrary cow.

I glared at my calendar. Three months to go. It was going to be a long three months. Still, at least it was nearly Christmas and I’d be off school for three glorious weeks. I was really looking forward to Christmas. It was my favourite day of the year and our family went all out. Dad would buy the biggest tree he could find and put it up at least two weeks beforehand. Then we’d decorate it with shiny, sparkly baubles, tinsel and a beautiful angel at the top.

All the presents, and I have to admit we were spoilt at Christmas, went under the tree and we opened them together on Christmas morning. My mother made the yummiest Christmas dinner and we’d put on paper hats, pull crackers and laugh at the crummy jokes. Then, when dinner was over, we’d sit in front of the fire and play games – Monopoly, Cluedo, Charades – and eat sweets from enormous tins of Quality Street and Roses. It was perfect.

My mother broke the news to me as we were decorating the tree. Uncle Pat, recently back from his ‘holidays’, and the family were coming for Christmas Day. I was devastated.

Uncle Pat had been to every clinic in the UK. The pattern was always the same: he’d go and dry out, then promise faithfully never to touch another drop. Everyone would say what a great guy he was and hope would spring anew. The longest he’d lasted was eight months. Then Auntie Sheila would call my father and ask for his help.

Uncle Pat was the youngest in the family. He had been spoilt by his mother and everyone did everything for him. He seemed to feel as if the world owed him something and expected to be bailed out every time he messed up – and he messed up a lot.

When he had come to London, my father had set him to work in an office, ordering building supplies. It was a cushy job and things had gone pretty well until his fondness for drink affected his daily life. He was constantly arriving late, nursing a hangover. He’d swan in, hang up his jacket, then take one of the suppliers out to the pub to ‘discuss business’. Things went from bad to worse and Dad began to worry about his little brother.

My father and uncles decided that Uncle Pat needed stability, so they set him up with Auntie Sheila, who was Auntie Denise’s second cousin. Auntie Sheila was thirty-seven, worked as a nurse and drank only on birthdays and at Christmas. She had told Auntie Denise that she was afraid she’d never get married and she desperately wanted children. She was getting on and needed to find a man. She said she wasn’t fussy what he looked like or did for a living, as long as he was a good person.

Uncle Pat’s brothers decided she was perfect for him. She was older, mature and sensible. Marriage and children would keep him at home and out of the pub. They encouraged him to go out with her. Somehow Pat managed to keep it together most of the time he was courting Auntie Sheila. She’d seen him drunk all right, but not on a daily basis. She knew he was a drinker, just had no idea how bad he was. On the morning of the wedding, he was found passed out in our front garden, face down in the grass. My father and mother plied him with coffee, threw him into the shower and managed to get him coherent enough to go through with the ceremony.

Marriage, however, didn’t stop him drinking. Neither did fatherhood. He got worse and worse. Once when Auntie Sheila had thrown him out of the house, he had come to stay with us for a few days and I’d had to give up my bed. On his last night, he had peed in his sleep, and when he left to go to rehab, I had refused to get into my bed until my mother had bought me a new mattress.

I dreaded Uncle Pat’s visits because he had nasty breath and was always crying into my hair because I looked like Granny O’Flaherty. I tried to make myself scarce when he was around. And now he was going to ruin my favourite day.

‘Why, Mum? Why do they have to come? They’ll ruin Christmas. Uncle Pat’ll just get drunk and cry and fall over. It’ll be awful.’

‘Don’t be so selfish. Poor Auntie Sheila could do with a nice day out and your cousins have had a hard time with Pat not being so well. You should be generous to them, poor things. Besides, we’re not ones to be taking the moral high ground, with Siobhan pregnant before marriage.’

Great! Now, because of Siobhan’s lusty ways, we were the poor cousins whom everyone felt sorry for. My God,
Uncle Pat
’s family probably felt sorry for us. How weird was that? We were the loser cousins for once. I needed to talk to Finn.

I pounced on him when he came in from training.

‘You’ll never guess who’s coming for Christmas dinner?’

‘Who?’

‘Smelly Pat and his family.’

‘Oh, Jesus. We’d better hide the drink and get the plastic sheets out.’

‘Do you think we’re the sad cousins now because of Siobhan?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, because she got pregnant and it was shameful and hush-hush.’

‘Dunno. Do you think we are?’

I shrugged. ‘Mum said something about it.’

‘Wow. That’s embarrassing.’

‘Yeah, I know. Do you think we’ll have to share our presents?’

‘I hope not. I’m not sharing my skateboard with anyone.’

‘Yeah, me neither.’

‘Are you getting one too?’

‘No, you thick, I’m getting a stereo for my bedroom.’

‘What’s Siobhan getting?’

‘A year’s supply of Pampers.’

We had a good laugh about that.

Christmas Day arrived, and Santa was as generous as always. We were given everything we asked for. Liam spent Christmas in our house as his family had disowned him, and Santa had given him and Siobhan a second-hand car. They were thrilled. Liam was all emotional when my father handed him the keys. Siobhan said she liked it, but would have preferred a red one – my mother whispered, ‘Hormones,’ to my father to stop him getting annoyed.

I got my stereo and the new A-Ha album, so I was thrilled. Finn got his skateboard and a Rubik’s cube. My father was keen for him to improve his concentration. Finn may have been a great footballer but he didn’t do a tap of work, and maths was not his best subject. My father reasoned that focusing on doing the Rubik’s cube would somehow make him better with figures. I knew it’d end up in the bottom of his cupboard.

While we were outside admiring the car, Uncle Pat and Co. trooped up the drive. Uncle Pat was swaying from side to side and I heard my father mutter, ‘I’ll kill him,’ under his breath. My mother rested her arm on his.

‘Leave it, Mick. He’s too far gone now. Talk to him tomorrow when he’s sobered up.’

‘That’s another thousand pounds down the drain. I’ll kill him.’

Uncle Pat’s ‘holidays’ were getting more expensive. I had heard my parents talking about them before and five hundred quid seemed to be the going rate. Obviously he had been sent to a new place. At this rate we’d be broke in no time. Shamed
and
broke – we’d really be the poor cousins then. My dislike of Uncle Pat intensified.

My cousins, Sally and Brian, looked really pissed off, while Auntie Sheila, who had outdone herself with the makeup today, bounded up the driveway full of cheer. She was talking very loudly and kept laughing hysterically at nothing.

Uncle Pat hugged us and told us we were wonderful kids, that our father was a saint and our mother an angel. My recently canonized father didn’t seem very saintly as he grabbed Uncle Pat’s arm and frogmarched him into the kitchen. Auntie Sheila kissed us, leaving large red lipstick marks on our faces and Sally and Brian mumbled, ‘Happy Christmas,’ avoiding eye contact with any of us.

My mother took charge and ushered everyone in out of the cold. She closed the kitchen door to drown my father’s raised voice telling Uncle Pat ‘Drink the bloody coffee or I’ll make you drink it myself.’

Auntie Sheila continued to laugh hysterically. My cousin Sally was fourteen and Brian was fifteen; they were always very quiet at family gatherings. They stuck together like glue and said little.

My mother always made a fuss of them. You could see she felt sorry for them having Uncle Pat as a father. But they seemed to be doing OK. Brian was really good at the violin, and Sally was clever in school – a fact my mother never failed to remind me of. ‘If poor Sally can get good grades with that useless fecker as a father, what’s your excuse?’ asked Mum.

She sometimes called Uncle Pat a ‘useless fecker’ when my father wasn’t around. I could see she thought he was a lost cause, but she never stopped my father sending him to dry out. Family was family and that was that.

‘Maybe the teachers feel sorry for her and give her good marks because of him,’ I suggested.

‘Maybe if you spent less time giving cheek to your mother and more time to studying your grades would improve.’

‘Sally’s a weirdo. She hasn’t got any friends. No wonder she has so much time to study. Would you prefer it if I was weird too?’

‘Now, you listen here, madam. Your cousin has a very difficult home life and you should be extra nice to her. You should be friendly to her, let her pal around with your gang and introduce her to your friends.’

Did I look like a masochist? Sally hang around with my gang? I was just about hanging around with them myself. Dragging my younger cousin along would tip the balance and I’d be an outcast. Besides, she was in the year below me. Everyone knew that you never hung around with anyone in the year below. It was a capital offence and guaranteed you a place among the goons. But I could see that my mother thought this was a great idea and I wanted to get her off the subject of my brainy cousin ruining the meagre street cred I had in school so I nodded.

We had been told on Christmas Eve that we had to give one of our presents to our cousins. Naturally we moaned and groaned and kicked up a fuss, but my father insisted this was a good lesson for us in giving. I reluctantly agreed to give Sally my
Just Seventeen
annual, even though it had a really cool pull-out poster of Duran Duran in the middle, with John Taylor looking utterly divine, his long tousled hair blowing in the wind. Finn agreed to give Brian the Rubik’s cube, but my father insisted that he part with something bigger so he gave him his new dartboard.