I supposed she couldn’t be gloomy all the time. It was the first time my niece had let me in on a joke. “Is it the wooden spoon you’re after?” Eileen said. “The glass heads on it.”ĭearbhla rolled her eyes at me. “I’ll miss that street lantern”, Eileen said. “It’s no place for a body, a couch”, Ma said. Our mother kept that Eileen in focus, and only saw the real one from the corner of her eye. But to Ma, there was another Eileen who’d stayed in school and who’d since become a million things. Not many Dubliners could rent alone aged 31, and she had a decent job and a child nearly raised. The guidance counsellor told her she was bound to succeed. (“That’s no way to be talking”, Ma said.) My own reports said either “shows potential”, ie brains but no effort, or “hard worker”, ie effort but no brains. I said the teachers fancied her, a claim I had parroted from one of our older cousins. Our mother had read out Eileen’s glowing school reports at the kitchen table while Eileen said, “Stop, Ma”. Until she got pregnant at fifteen, she’d been the one with tidy pink notebooks and her hair in a plait. Our parents had divorced when I was a baby, and now lived in different counties in the west of Ireland. I liked Dublin, however little it reciprocated. “Thanks, Ma.” But I knew I’d stay where I was.
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