Two Mothers

Two Mothers

Julie- Ann Corrigan

Mother's Ruin

 Even at thirty I still love my mum to smooth a stray curl and push it lovingly behind my ear.  Her rhythmical touch is both mesmerising and meditative, never failing to send me off into a much-needed sleep.

My mother though, has been dead for sixteen years.

I’d spoken only to my younger brother of her visits.  I began recounting our mum’s late night drop-ins from the time he was a baby, and as he grew older it seemed natural to continue.  Jason never questioned me; he always believed. It brought a closeness that was sometimes, lacking.

Theresa Molineaux died giving birth to Jason.  I was fourteen and been waiting for a sibling for most of my life.  Often I would wonder that if I hadn’t talked incessantly of wanting a brother or sister, my mum wouldn’t have had another child.  And wouldn’t have died.

‘We both wanted another one, Angelina … it just took a while for the whole conception thing to happen to us a second time,’ Dad had said.

I was never sure if I believed him.

With Jason in my arms, I cried silently at mum’s funeral thinking, if you weren’t here, Jason, Mum would be alive.  But I loved him, which was just as well because in all but name I became his mum.  As I threw the wet, sticky soil onto the wooden box that held mum’s body, I promised her that I would look after him. 

And that was the first time I felt the smooth cool fingers of my dead mum, pushing a rebellious brown curl back behind my ear.  Afterwards, this only occurred at night, in bed, with the lights down and me in the twilight zone of semi- sleep.  It always happened then.

I wish I hadn’t listened to anyone.  Giving up work at three months pregnant wasn’t a good idea.  I was healthy, full of energy, with far too much time – time  that led me deep into my head.  And that was a place I didn’t like visiting too often, because here was where I questioned my ability to be a mum.

I’d never been one for ‘going for coffee,’ but boredom and restlessness changed my habits.  I was grateful when a group of women befriended me.  It was the beautiful Brazilian, Giselle, who after pouring green tea suggested flippantly we try having an Ouija.  As we all gulped the murky liquid, only I appeared reticent.

I don’t know how it happened, but it was decided that we ‘have a go’ around my house the next day.

Mum had visited every night since her death; but she didn’t visit the night before the Ouija.

My new friends arrived, making themselves very comfortable very quickly.  They seemed at ease with each other, but suddenly my own home felt uncomfortable.

‘Shouldn’t we have done this in the evening?’  I asked.

‘It doesn’t matter … does not have to be dark.’  Giselle scanned my lounge.  ‘Might be an idea to close the blinds though.’

‘Giselle, I’m not sure about this …’ It seemed a few of the other women had felt the same way.  Only Giselle, Florence and Florence’s au pair, Miriam stood in my lounge.

‘Oh, stop worrying.  It’s not serious.  Now girls, is there anyone you want to get in touch with?’ Giselle said.

No one said a word.  Giselle looked at me.

‘Angelina, seeing as you’re the hostess – you should go first.’

The other women nodded in vigorous agreement.

‘But I don’t know what to do … might be better if someone else goes first?’

‘No, we insist.’  Her gaze took in the other two women.  ‘You first.’

 It dawned on me this was the real reason I’d agreed to something I knew was wrong.  I wanted my mum to speak.  I wanted more than an ethereal touch.  I thought of Jason and what he would say, bloody hell, Ange, you don’t mess with stuff like this.  Sensible Jason.

Giselle ignored my hesitance, understanding my deeper need.  She was already pulling out the board from her designer metallic bag.

‘Have you got a wide-rimmed glass?  Giselle asked.

I rushed into the kitchen, beginning to understand how domineering she really was but obeying anyway.  I wanted to tell them to go, to leave.  But I couldn’t.  Forever the follower.  My hand touched my growing stomach.  I hadn’t wanted a baby, not yet, but everyone told me it was a great idea, ‘something of your own.’

      My lounge looked eerily different with the blinds closed in the middle of the morning.  Giselle produced a candle from the bag, placing it next to the Ouija.  She then lit it.

‘We all need to be quiet.’ Miriam said, theatrically.  The silent au pair was now leading the show.  Because for me it was a show.  That is what I kept telling myself, trying hard not to feel apprehensive.  I thought of my motherless night.  Mum never said anything on her visits.  She didn’t need to; I knew it was her by the blast of spicy perfume that I’d grown up with; the calming presence and the sublime serenity I felt in the moments that she moved my hair.

Why hadn’t she visited me the previous night? 

The four of us sat down and placed a hand on the glass.

Miriam’s face was blank.  The flame of the candle grew in size.

Giselle’s face became animated.  I realised I knew nothing about any of these women who sat on my floor, used my house; understanding with a jolt of familiar emotion, which I hadn’t felt since my unhappy school days, they were using me and my home.

‘I can feel it, I can feel it,’ Miriam said.

The flame of the candle was now massive and the colour a strange green hue – as if someone had added sulphur.  The aroma overpowered the strong smell of the Lavender flowers that sat in my windowsill.  I got up to open the window; Giselle pushed me back down roughly.  Then the flame returned to normal and the smell disappeared.

I looked up from the board.  Not wanting to.  Terrified of what I might see but hoping I would see my mum again. 

And standing motionless at the back of my lounge there she was.  My mum. 

I took an intake of breath, trying to smell spicy perfume.  But I smelt nothing, only the burning aroma of candle and a hint of sulphur.

The loneliness of the past sixteen years overwhelmed me and I registered my sorrow at what Jason had never had – our mum.  But she was here now.  Standing so near.  Finally, I could admit her nightly visits were real.

Her upper body was shadowed by something that didn’t appear to exist.  I was desperate to see her face and rose from the floor.  The others were silent but when I glanced at Giselle, I saw a slow smile beginning to spread across her chiselled features.

       My hand touched my stomach.  I’d been waiting weeks for the first movement; then I felt my baby.  The wriggling became persistent, almost punching me from the inside.  I was aware of my baby’s distress.  With a surge of quickening love I talked to my baby, using the same calming voice my mum had used with me. 

But what was wrong?

Because something was wrong.  Very wrong.  As much as I needed to believe this thing in front of me was my mum, everything inside of me was telling me it wasn’t. 

Whatever had been shadowing her face had now disappeared.

I didn’t want to look but I did.

I looked directly at her face and stepped back in sickening panic as I peered at what seemed to be … an undefined image of myself.

There was no spicy smell, no calming feeling.  My baby moved rapidly inside my body – as if trying to escape.  Although the feeling of dread was palpable – the fourteen-year-old girl in me waited for the apparition to raise an arm and touch my hair.  It didn’t.  And when finally I peered into the soulless, empty eyes, I knew why.  This wasn’t my mum.  The smile was alien; the demeanour unlike anything I remembered.

I looked towards my supposed friends.  They smiled knowingly.  They had done this before and knew how dangerous it was.  I was their entertainment.  Pampered women’s entertainment.

I yelled at them, and at the thing.

‘Get out, get out of my house.  Leave me, and my baby alone.’

 My baby moved violently again.  The dim light began to fade.  I had finally said what I wanted to say and inside my head told my child I loved and wanted it.

But then I lost sense of all reality.

*     *     *     *     *

I woke up in a small room.  I knew I was in hospital – the melange of antiseptic smells was too strong for me to be wrong.  My husband slept in a chair.  I moved my hands towards my stomach.  The memory of the demon, and the women, clear in my memory.

I had lost my baby. The demon had taken it. 

And then in the room’s half-light I smelt the spicy smell.  My sadness a thing alive and living within me.

For the first time in sixteen years I saw the face of my mother.

She sat on my bed and slowly stroked my lank hair.

‘Don’t worry sweet Angelina, everything is fine.’

I smiled through tears, ‘Mum, it really is you.  This time it’s you?’

‘Yes, my darling.  It’s me.’  She continued stroking.

‘My baby, mum, – it’s gone.  Everything is my fault.  Letting those women in my house … ’

She placed a hand on my stomach, ‘No, your baby is still here,’ she patted the mound, ‘and happy – happy that you will be her mother, Angelina, as Jason has been happy for you to be his mother – you’ve done a good job with him, Ange.’  Her use of Jason’s name for me made me smile.

‘But what about the demon…?’ 

‘The demon doesn’t exist – only in your head – the demon is you, and maybe your so-called friends.  It, and them, represent your fears and anxieties, your insecurities.  You won’t be seeing it, or them again, I can assure you.’

My mum visited me only once more after that night.

It was five months later.  I watched as mum stroked my daughter’s unusual mop of hair.  The spicy scent much milder than I remembered.  No word was spoken.

I didn’t see or smell her again.  My peace exonerated her from further visits.  But she was always there, somewhere, on the edge.

Bio:

Julie-Ann Corrigan has had a number of short stories published including one in Bridge House Publishing’s Devils, Demons and Werewolves. Two of her stories were chosen of the Best of Cafelit 2011 and she has been shortlisted and commended in short story competitions. Her first historical novel is currently seeking an agent and she is currently working on her second novel.

An Illicit Romance

 

Julie-Ann Corrigan

 

Hazelnut Latte with a sprinkling of nut meg - a guilty pleasure

Margarita was standing in the kitchen brewing the morning coffee.  She spent as much time scooping it back out of the filter as she did putting it in.

Graham said she always used too much coffee.  Making the coffee had always been Graham’s job in the mornings, but since her early retirement, it had become her job.

Margarita flinched even now at the word retirement.

Graham appeared in the kitchen; tie neat, hair slicked forward too much over his bald patch, ‘What are you up to today?’   He was adding more water to the thick liquid Margarita had handed to him.  It was still too strong.

‘Today’s the loft day.  I’m finally going to sort my box,’ she said, eyeing up her husband’s tampered-with coffee.  ‘I really wish you’d boarded the loft before now, it’s going to be awful clambering about up there – I’m not getting any younger, you know.’

‘I know.’ Graham looked too hard at Margarita’s sensible dressing gown. ‘You know how it is with work and everything, never enough time.’  Did he expect her to board the loft, seeing as she wasn’t working? ‘Don’t worry I’ll do it this weekend.  Just don’t nag me.’  He poured the coffee down the sink and kissed his wife.  ‘Leave your box today Marg.  Don’t go ferreting around up there until I’ve boarded it for you, okay?’

‘Okay.’ Margarita replied.

 

  *      *      *

         Margarita had been in the cramped loft for what felt like hours.  

Getting older was no fun, she thought, as she took a too large step to get to the next plank.  She ignored the pull in her calf muscle, determined to get to the enormous box that was perched precariously at the far end of the loft.

The aches in her body dulled as she contemplated the fun she was going to have looking at all the old photos; reading letters from friends.

 She’d thought after her retirement, she’d have all the time in the world. There were so many things she wanted to do; a whole world left to explore, maybe research her family history.  And … rediscover her passionate love for her husband.

Graham was ten years younger than Margarita.  It had never been a problem, ever.  Until she retired.  Until then their easy love and comradeship had seemed to offset any friction that might have occurred because of their respective busy jobs.  Friends were continually telling them how lucky they were to rub along so easily together.

Some of these same friends hinted at their childlessness and how much easier it was for them - because they didn’t have children.  Margarita and Graham were unbothered by these early cutting remarks.  They married because they loved each other.  Children were secondary to their needs.  So when children never happened, neither of them was at all concerned. 

Margarita paused in her loft quest and allowed herself to reminisce thinking of those early days; fending off the ‘when are you having children?’ remarks.

Margarita continued to pull the box along the loft.  It snagged on a plank, looked unsteady for a moment, but was then sitting in front of her. There, she’d got it.  Her excitement at finally conquering the box was overshadowed by thoughts of her husband.  This box was filled with memories; of holidays and special occasions. They took few photos these days, probably because they did so little together. He was consumed by his job, never really wanting to take holidays, too tired to socialise.

 Margarita was desperate to start seeing the world now she had the time, but she only felt strangely trapped by her freedom. Graham had another ten years left at work.  How could she wait that long?

Margarita had been a physiotherapist all of her life.  Her job had demanded organisation and efficiency.  She was straightforward but knew one of her more unappealing traits was her need to be in control.  Since she had more time on her hands, this trait had manifested itself into bossiness. 

She knew this because Graham had told her so only the other day.  In all fairness, he had qualified his comment by saying that is was her bossiness that had first attracted him to her.

Margarita had by now taken the battered box out of the loft.  She sat on the landing, made herself as comfortable as possible and tentatively opened the lid.

In one encompassing glance, she viewed the whole of their marriage.  She tucked arthritic knees under her chin and began.

The most recent correspondence and photos lay on the top.  Margarita put her hand and forearm down into the depths of the box and pulled the last twenty years out.  As it spilled onto the floor, she pushed it out of the way with her foot.  She dug again into the box, retrieving their first ten years of life together.  The part she, more than ever today, was compelled to examine.

There it was.  What she’d been subconsciously waiting to find. 

A faded black and white photograph of a much younger Margarita with a broad, blonde-haired young man.  They were sitting on a grassy embankment.  In the background was the old Victorian building in which Margarita had worked and then managed for over twenty-five years.  Just by looking at the old photo, she saw the sheer love, the determination of youth as the pair gazed at each other.

She had all but forgotten about her illicit romance.  Sitting on her immaculately clean landing, old feelings flourished.  The pain in her knees disappeared as quickly as the adrenaline had begun to flow.

Margarita was now, quite furiously, pulling out other photographs.  There was a batch taken in the old gymnasium of the Physiotherapy Department; lots of images of the statuesque blonde man.  With her experienced physiotherapist’s eye, she saw the pain in the young man’s eyes as he struggled to walk with the aid of the bars.  The photographs represented the recovery from the horrific injuries he’d sustained from his motorbike accident.  Margarita vividly remembered his slow and painful journey.  She was in many of the photos.  She was his physiotherapist and as she fell in love with her blonde patient, she’d felt his pain as if it were her own.  The surgeons, in their usual pessimistic way had told him he would never walk again.  Margarita was determined to prove them wrong.  She used all her skills to rehabilitate him to his full potential.  It took a long time. 

But in the end, neither of them minded how long it took.  Because each day in the Rehabilitation Centre represented another day in which they could be together.  Another day they could fall more in love. 

Another day in which she could well be, severely disciplined.

She pulled out another photograph, this time of herself and a tall, elegant woman, well into her fifties.  Her old boss. By only looking at the photo, she felt the dread.  She remembered clearly the day she’d been called into Mrs Clealand’s office.

She’d been made to wait outside for a good twenty minutes before her formidable boss called her in.  It was a ruse Margarita and her young collegues knew well.  ‘Makes you more acquiescent, you know.’  Josie had once observed.  ‘You’re so bloody terrified by the time she gets you in there you’ll do anything she bloody well asks.’ 

Margarita thought briefly of the now dead Josie and quickly felt guilty that she’d not thought of her for years.  How could she have forgotten Josie?

But like many things, she had forgotten.

Margarita finally sat down in Mrs Cleland’s office; the smell of cinnamon biscuits putting her at dangerous ease.

 ‘So, Mrs Hepworth, you appear to be achieving marvellous results with our young motorcycle boy.’  Margarita didn’t know if it was a compliment or not.  Did Mrs ‘See-Everything’ know about her and the patient?

‘Yes,’ was all she could muster as redness seeped up above her starched white uniform.

‘Margarita, you are very young and very married.  You have a marvellous career ahead of you.  What are you doing?’

Margarita had no idea what to say.  She was ashamed; she felt like an idiot, but was beyond rational thought.

‘I love him, Mrs Clealand, and he loves me.  I’m going to get a divorce.’  Margarita didn’t know who was more shocked at this statement, Mrs Clealand or herself.  Only for a moment did she worry her blonde Adonis felt the same. 

There was a barely audible tap on the door, Mrs Clealand snapped,  ‘Come in!’

The blonde head poked around the door, news travelled fast around the Rehabilitation centre.  His voice was strong and clear.  Margarita loved him even more.

‘Mrs Clealand, is there something we need to discuss?’  He glanced at Margarita reassuringly.

‘Yes, there is.’  She pulled herself up to her full height, ‘You’ve made a substantial recovery under the care of one of my best and most promising junior member of staff.’  Her face softened. ‘As the Senior Physiotherapist here, I will be discharging you from her care, as of today.’  Mrs Clealand pretended to shuffle some papers and not looking at either of them carried on, ‘I know nothing, I only hope you both know what you are doing.  Please leave now – and Margarita, make sure you finish your morning duties, you have a busy afternoon ahead of you.’ 

Margarita still remembered how despondent and yet at the same time, euphoric she’d felt.  Mrs Clealand was not going to sack her, but she still had to confront her young husband and more terrifying, her own mother. 

Divorce was still a dirty word in the early seventies … at least it was in Margarita’s middle-class family.

Margarita’s career had weathered the considerable storm.  Not that many years after the illicit affair and a convivial divorce, she was chosen as Mrs Clealands natural successor.  Mrs Clealand had called her a born leader and Margarita’s career blossomed.  Margarita smiled at Josie’s response to her promotion, ‘You still don’t get to boss me around missy.’  No one bossed Josie around, only the blonde Adonis had got away with that.  Again Margarita felt guilty about not remembering her old friend enough.  She made a mental note to visit her grave with Graham later that week.

Thinking of her contemporary husband brought Margarita away from her nostalgia.  She looked at the time, ‘Goodness, I really must go and start making dinner,’ she said to herself.   She unfolded stiff knees, pushed everything into a corner picking up only a few photographs to peer at downstairs whilst cooking.  She couldn’t help it.

 

 *       *       *

 

She hadn’t left herself enough time to prepare the casserole and felt a little bit cross with herself.  She’d spent too much time upstairs; tripping down memory lane.  Graham wouldn’t say a thing – she knew – but nevertheless she felt guilty.  In the old days before she had retired they would have laughed and sent out for a takeaway.  But for some reason now she felt she should be keeping the home fires burning, her mother’s voice reverberating in her head.

She heard Graham’s Jaguar pull into the drive.  Maybe they could have eggs on toast.

‘I’m home Marg!’  Graham shouted.  As he entered the kitchen, he brought in a strong smell of autumnal evening air.

Margarita quickly pushed the old photographs underneath the newspaper.  She had a feeling this wasn’t the best time to be showing them to Graham.  He didn’t look quite his usual self.

‘Are you all right, darling?  You look a little distracted.’  She forgot about her day and concentrated on her husband.

‘Had a bit of strange day, as it happens,’ Graham undid his tie and uncharacteristically, threw it onto the kitchen table.  ‘It would seem Marg, that I’ll be joining you in retirement.’  

Graham appeared older than when he had left for work earlier in the day.

‘I don’t understand – you don’t want to retire yet, do you?’

‘Well no - not really.  The company’s been taken over and most of the over fifties, in middle management, well, have been given a very lucrative retirement package.’

‘Including you?’

‘Yes, definitely including me.’ 

Margarita thought for a terrible moment he was going to cry.  She noticed the way he limped along the kitchen; his bad leg always got worse when something was bothering him; as though the burdens on his mind affected the damaged muscles in his body.  Mind and body always truly connected.

Graham sat down heavily.  He pulled the newspaper towards the end of the table pretending the conversation was over; Margarita’s day’s work slid out.  The faded photos dropped onto Grahams lap.

An invitation to sort things out.

‘You’ve been busy.’  Graham said.  ‘I told you I’d fix the loft … this weekend.’ 

Margarita felt a pang of guilt.  She knew that doing the loft was a major exercise for Graham.  Her gaze trailed down to his bad leg; she felt guiltier than ever.  It bothered him more than he would ever let on.  It was too much … she expected too much.

He still hadn’t looked at the photographs.

Margarita studied her husband, at the same time trying to find the right words to soothe his slightly bruised ego regarding his unexpected news.

‘Maybe it’s not a bad thing Graham – you know, being retired.’  She looked at him for reassurance and carried on, ‘We can spend more time together, go and see the world.’  His expression softened, she felt she could make a joke, like she used to, ‘Maybe you can start making the coffee again in the mornings.’ 

As Graham chuckled, he began to look at Margarita’s photos; staring intently at the black and white fading image of Margarita and the blonde Adonis.  It was as if a shadow had crossed his face. 

Margarita sat directly opposite her husband … and waited.

‘It must be over twenty-five years, Margarita.’  He glanced at his beloved wife.  ‘You haven’t changed at all.’

‘No, I have my mother’s genes, I think.’  She got up and walked behind his chair, peering at the photo with him, ‘It’s your hair, Graham – you have so much less of it now.’

  ‘Mmm – and it’s considerably whiter.’  He encircled her waist with his arm and hugged her like he hadn’t done for a while.  ‘It seems like only yesterday, yet at the same time, a lifetime ago.’

‘Can you remember that day in Mrs Clealand’s office?  You came in like a knight in shining armour and “saved” me.  I knew then that we’d grow old together.’

‘Margarita, you never needed saving, that’s why I fell in love with you.’

‘We were a bit naughty weren’t we?  An illicit romance - who would think it – looking at us now?’  Margarita started to giggle uncontrollably.  Graham got up, now not limping and kissed her.

‘Well, my darling we’d better start planning some holidays, don’t you think?’

Margarita knew they would be all right. 

Together they always got through everything.

Bio:

Julie-Ann writes short stories and articles. She has had short stories published in collections and one of her recent articles was published in Beat Magazine (see her interview with Laura Wilkinson here: 

She has recently completed her first novel and is now working on her second.

It's Christmas ... again

Julie-Ann Corrigan

Gin –Mother’s Ruin

It’s early November and already, like a seasonal mythological monster, Christmas begins to loom ominously inside my mind.  I try to blank it out but it’s impossible to escape.

First, the toy adverts begin.  Day and night.  Unremitting.

Then the magazines start with: ‘How to lose weight in three seconds and look like either Madonna or Scarlett Johansson’ depending on which magazine you pick up in your pre-Christmas dental appointment.  And this is only the beginning.  During your weekly supermarket shop you can’t help but wander down the aisles of the Christmas section, buying everything you don’t need; an over-priced Christmas cake, dates, and Brazil nuts.  Items no one in your family will ever eat.  Not to mention the chocolate Santa that your daughter has shoved secretly, beneath the grapes.  It’s only November the second.

The kids, if you’re lucky, are still basking in the fast fading glory of who had the best Halloween outfit; who had the most fireworks.  But this honeymoon period doesn’t last long.  By mid-November you can’t hide your kids from the hype any longer, ‘But Mum, it’s only nine weeks away … that’s only nine Saturdays,’ and you think, my ten year old is right, how am I possibly going to do everything in just nine Saturdays?

And how are you? 

Well, one thing for sure, you won’t be doing it with your partner, will you?  Because no matter how fantastic he is on holiday, at the weekend, and at family funerals, there is something about the Christmas celebrations that alienates the male.

I remember once before marriage and a child, my now husband decided to invite his mum for Christmas lunch.  I was terrified.  I couldn’t cook.  Noticing – too late – the look of sheer terror on my face at the thought of having to produce a turkey with all the trimmings, he proclaimed grandly that he would cook lunch.  I was over the moon.  After opening our presents he set about preparing.  I set about drinking.

Lunch appeared on the table just after six.  I was too drunk to eat it!  After that first Christmas together he never sets foot in the kitchen between the twenty-third of December and New Year’s Eve.

And so; the clock is ticking, the bathroom scales are pulled from their resting place and your child suddenly learns to spell words which were impossible for them in their SATS exams only months before.  Yet, in her enthusiasm to write to Santa, to get what she wants, she suddenly develops the semantic and grammar skills of A.A. Gill.

Buying the presents is the first hurdle to pass, and so you decide to be organised and go for one big shop at Toys r Us. You fall into the same trap as you did last year, buying the ‘must have’ present in good time for the big day; believing the hype that the shop will sell out.  Of course, by the end of November, all people under ten have changed their mind.  They don’t want that ‘must have’ toy – they want another one.  The ‘must have’ one which you’ve already bought has definitely not sold out – there are hundreds of them sitting on the shelf – on offer now.  You’ve mislaid your receipt, so only get back seventy-five per cent of the toy’s original value.

Things are already not looking good.  The husband begins to spend longer at work and your strictness at only allowing ice cream on special occasions is deteriorating rapidly, as you begin – insidiously – to lose your parental nerve.  Anything for an easier life becomes your mantra.

‘How am I going to get to December twenty-fifth?’ you are beginning to ask yourself.  This is before the dreaded phone call around mid-December, when your sister-in-law informs you, for the fourth year in a row, that they are ‘abroad for Christmas’ and ‘can you have Mum?’  Qualifying the request with, ‘You know how she adores being with the kids…’ 

No actually, I don’t know; she hasn’t seen them since last Christmas. But by December fifteenth you’re losing the will to live anyway and your mother-in-law coming to stay is the least of your problems, because your main problem now – mid-December – is THE TREE.

Do we have an artificial, real, fat or thin one; one with dropping or non-dropping needles?  Tree shopping has become like shoe shopping.  Too much choice.  Finally, we pick one and bring it home.  Invariably, everyone including my daughter (who helped me choose it) moans about my choice.  By now I’m anaesthetised to opinion; until my daughter begins to decorate it.  Years of collecting ‘arty’ baubles are wasted as cheerfully, she puts her school-made dough decorations on the tree. 

Opinion begins to manifest itself.  I have to stop myself from yelling, No!  ‘It looks lovely,’ is what I say. 

An earth mother I am not.

Thinking of mothers’, I don’t remember my own mum being this stressed out – she made it look so easy.  I wonder if my own daughter will be thinking the same thing in twenty-odd years’ time?

  

 

Bio:

Julie-Ann writes short stories and articles. She has had short stories published in collections and one of her recent articles was published in Beat Magazine (see her interview with Laura Wilkinson here: )

She has recently completed her first novel and is now working on her second.

A SWEET TOOTH AT CHRISTMAS – a Slice of Paradise

                                              Julie- Ann Corrigan

                                                    sweet sherry

As Halloween, Bonfire Night, and finally November fades into recent history, there is nothing that reminds me more of the passage of time than the onset of Christmas preparations.

    More than looking in the mirror, passing birthdays and children growing outrageously tall; the beginnings of Christmas rudely reminds me of the changes all our lives are subtly undergoing.

    I remember a time when the Festive Season meant dressing up, going out to parties and opening unexpected, luxury presents on Christmas morning.

    I got away with any festive preparations until I was well into my thirties.  Even after having a child of my own we would still pack up the car on Christmas Eve and zoom up to my old home.

 Dropping bags and gear on my mum’s kitchen floor I marvelled at her baking skills.  The house smelled of freshly baked mince pies and her famous Paradise Slice.  Of vanilla essence from the homemade custard she only made at Christmas.

    One thing you have to understand about my mum was her obsessive interest in all things sweet.  The turkey and trimming came a poor second to the massive selection of cakes displayed yearly, on the sideboard in the dining room.  My husband said once that he could feel his cholesterol rising by smelling the air.  I told him not to be paranoid.  My mum looked all right on it didn’t she?  Although sometimes I did wonder how she kept her size eight figure.

    Time passes though.

    The year finally came when it became difficult to spend Christmas in my childhood home.  Mum and Dad couldn’t quite manage the whole Christmas thing.  Our daughter was getting older and it was becoming increasingly difficult to persuade her that Santa knew where we were located on Christmas morning. 

    So there I was – inviting my whole sweet-toothed family to ours for Christmas.

    I had finally grown up.

    I was doing the festive season.

My brother called to make sure I would be carrying on in the family tradition and be making ’Mums Paradise Slice.’  ‘I didn’t know you liked it,’ I said.  ‘I know, but its part of Christmas isn’t it?  he replied.  A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead anticipating what else might be ‘part of Christmas.’  To be as good as my mum was a lot to ask.  It felt like a gargantuan undertaking.

    How could I possibly live up to everyone’s expectations – including my own?

    I decided to be organised.  I would start early.  I adored my mum and I wanted her to have all the best cake and trifle she could possibly eat. I wanted to take over the Olympic flame of Christmas efficiently.  I wanted her and Dad to be proud.   Maybe I would try something different, perhaps Delia’s famous chocolate bread pudding?  A banana and chocolate trifle?  My imagination ran away with itself.

My husband re-named me the Tesco Terminator as I trawled the supermarket aisles like the fictional cyborg character.  I scanned the products and prices as efficiently as Arnie had scanned for human warmth and movement. He told to calm down.  Chill out, I think was his phrase as I passed by the chilled aisle like an automaton. 

  My mum called constantly, telling me not to go to too much trouble.  My brother heard on the family grapevine I was worried about ‘doing’ Christmas. Did I want to cancel?  ‘No’ I shouted into the phone, ‘I can manage.’

    December unfolded.  Invitations dropped through the door with the same consistency as the bills would do in January.  I was a party girl by nature and having a house, child, husband and a Christmas to prepare for was not about to stop me enjoying myself.  I wanted to be super-woman and do everything. 

    My freezer was full.  I made the trifle and pud in advance.  But by Christmas Eve the fridge bulged like a supermarket shelf.  I had to ask my neighbours (who always spent Christmas in a local bistro), if I could use their fridge to store the last of my efforts, including the most impressive chocolate and banana trifle.  While I was round there, I put the turkey in their fridge too.

    As we wrapped the last of Santa’s presents, I couldn’t ignore the dreaded feeling in my throat any longer.  I told myself off for finishing the last of the mulled wine; my head was thumping.

    Christmas had begun and I was steadily beginning to feel worse as my sore throat threatened to turn into something more sinister, but I didn’t care.  I was supremely organised – everyone kept telling me so.

Santa’s visit was prolific.  Toys and people engulfed our house.  I knew I had flu, but kept it to myself.  I only needed to get through the day.  After the usual early Christmas breakfast (four-thirty apparently is okay on Christmas morning), I went to get my neighbours key to retrieve various cakes, trifles and the turkey. 

    It wasn’t where I thought I’d had left it.  It was nowhere to be found.  My daughter was left to her own devices as the whole family searched for the key. 

It had vanished as spectacularly as Santa had done. 

All day it was missing.

The trauma of having a turkey-free Christmas though, seemed to cure my sore throat. 

So we had no turkey, no trifle, and no pudding.   My daughter thought it was a hoot eating chips on Jesus’s birthday.  My mum discovered a love of jaffa cakes, my husband admitted he’d never liked trifle anyway and my dad, well my dad only chuckled at his daughter who he proclaimed loudly, would never truly grow up. 

    It was I believe, the best Christmas ever.

    I think I will though, if you don’t mind, put off growing up for a little while yet.  Next year we’re back at Mum and Dads for Christmas.  Mum can clearly cope better than me – hopefully for some years to come.  Together with our daughter, we have already e-mailed Santa well in advance with our plans and location for next Christmas.

    By the way, the key was nestling snugly in my dressing gown pocket and the neighbours loved the trifle.

                                       

 Bio:

Julie-Ann writes short stories and articles. She has had short stories published in collections  and one of her recent articles was published in Beat Magazine (see her interview with Laura Wilkinson here: )

She has recently completed her first novel and is now working on her second.

The Wrong End of the Train

Tinto de Verano (Wine of Summer)

Julie-Ann Corrigan

I am sitting on a bleached white beach, squinting towards an impossibly turquoise sea.  The temperature is over thirty degrees.  Even on this empty stretch of sand, I can see a waiter from the hotel hovering a respectable distance behind me.  Waiting for a wave of my hand, which will indicate my need for more water.

 Five star travel.  It’s great but as I feel the attentive eyes of the hotel worker; I feel nostalgia for my youth, the spontaneity of student travel and backpacking with little cash.  I miss the thirst that wasn’t quenched as quickly as the one I have today.  But when it was finally satisfied, probably from a public water fountain in an obscure mountain Spanish village – God, did it feel good.

Garboesque (I like to think), I continue to peer out across the Caribbean Sea, hoping the waiter will find another more willing hotel guest and leave me alone.

A busy life halts nostalgia.  I now have a few moments to indulge.  And so I do and breaking the intrinsic rules of English politeness, I tell the waiter to leave me alone.

*     *     *

The guard at the Gare d’Austerlitz was emphatic about which end of the train we should be heading for.  Sue and I were laughing too much to take him seriously.  It didn’t matter to us – we were getting on a train, in Paris, our inter-rail tickets tucked firmly in our backpacks.  We didn’t care which end of the train we sat in.  I saw the guard vaguely shake his head in that Parisian sort of way. 

  Barcelona, here we come, was my only thought.

We slept all the way, missing out on the spaghetti western scenery and the beauty of the Pyrenees.  It must have been the rough red wine that we’d swigged before the train had even left the outskirts of Paris.

I think I woke up once or twice on the journey.  Once when elbowed by a convivial looking Spaniard and again when the driver did something funny with the breaks.  The second time I didn’t go back to sleep.  We seemed to be entering a big city.  I told Sue it was Barcelona.  She winked at me with a sleepy eye, pulled out the remainder of the wine and finished it off.  We were going to have a hoot.

I’m really not quite sure when we realised it wasn’t Barcelona.  Looking back, I guess it was when the nice lady at the British Embassy in Madrid, told us. 

‘You got on the wrong end of the train,’ she said.  I got the distinct impression she had quoted this line many times, to many student travellers.  I felt suitably silly.  Sue had gone very quiet.  I think she had a hangover.  ‘It’s the other half that stopped in Barcelona…didn’t you realise you’d been on the train too long?’

I eyed up Sue.  She gave me the evil glance, ‘We were sleeping…’ I said.

The lady sighed, ‘We’ll have to get you temporary passports…’

We spent twelve hours at the Embassy.  The pick pockets on the Madrid underground had taken everything.  I don’t quite know how they’d managed it.  Genius is what came to mind.  But I didn’t say that to Sue.  I don’t think she would have found it funny. 

No one asked us if we had enough money for a room that night.  We did.  Only just, if we didn’t eat or drink a thing.  Sue wasn’t happy.  I agreed that we could use the last few pesetas’ on a drink.  We found a bar just around the corner from our Pension and near to the bank where I’d asked my parents to wire us money; Sue’s Mum and Dad were on holiday in Australia.

‘We really ought to go into the bank first – sort everything out,’ I said.

‘Just one drink…you know it’ll take ages in there,’ Sue said.

I agreed and watched Sue down exactly one half of the cerveza, she handed the glass to me and I finished it off.  We both agreed it was the best beer we’d ever tasted.

The bank manager was tall (I thought) for a Spaniard and not that old.  Must be a high flyer.  He had a laughing face but no smile.  I would never know how he managed that.

We filled out gazillions of forms.  Sue asked him if we could borrow a few pesetas until the money reached us; her stomach grumbled at the same time.  The bank manager’s lips began to match his laughing face.

‘Tienes hambre?’

‘Of course we’re bloody hungry!’  Sue said.  As well as being tri-lingual, she also had a massive appetite.

‘You two girls, wait in the bar across the street…’ he looked at his watch, ‘I finish work at five – I’ll meet you in there.’  He really was astonishingly handsome.  I looked at Sue.  She didn’t look convinced.  She was also very cynical.  He surveyed the two of us, ‘You can pay me back tomorrow, when your money arrives.  But tonight I will ensure that guests to my country won’t starve.’  He was now laughing out loud.  He handed Sue a wad of notes. I kicked her under the chair; she yelped and said gracias to the gracious Spaniard.

‘We don’t eat very much.’  I was lying, Sue did.  It never crossed my mind that we could now buy our own dinner.

Prior to visiting the bank we had hung out four washed knickers on the line which was precariously strung across the small balcony. 

In our shared room at the Pension we attempted to make ourselves look presentable, both silently acknowledging the charisma of ‘our’ bank manager.

‘Where’s our knickers?’ Sue said.

‘Drying on the balcony,’ I said.

‘No they’re not…been nicked, I think.’

We collapsed onto the small bed, giggling uncontrollably. 

We’d even had our underwear stolen.

Dalmacio Navarro was true to his word.  He arrived at our table bang on five.  When we told him about the knickers I saw how the whole of his face laughed.

We ate an abnormal amount of food.  I don’t think Sue stopped for air.  Dalmacio sat back in his chair and watched.  I don’t remember him eating a thing.

*     *     *

The turquoise sea is receding, leaving the perfect smoothness of wet sand.  I look at my absent watch.  It is snuggled in the hotel safe.  I never wear a time-piece on holiday.  I sense more than hear soft footsteps close to me.  Must be the waiter.  I’m ready for that water now.

‘Hola, nina.’

It isn’t the waiter, it is my husband.

I kiss him, ‘Hello there.’

‘Where are you, nina?  Miles away, I can see.’

‘I was back in Madrid…’  I watch his face and eyes smile, followed quickly by the lips.

‘Ah!  A little nostalgia?’

I stand and brush sand off my expensive bikini, ‘Only a little.’

We stroll back to our expensive hotel room.  I look at the bed; it is full of bags, with two rucksacks at the front – packed.

‘We’re not due back until next week,’ I say.

‘We’re not going home.  I’ve checked us out the hotel…they will keep our suitcases.’  The lines around his eyes became deeper, ‘Thought you might enjoy roughing it for a week, see the island…I’ve packed your oldest denims… we can drink beer instead of wine and cocktails.’

While we wait for the bus outside the hotel (the concierge is very confused we don’t want a taxi), I send Sue a text.  I have only to wait a few moments for a reply.

Make sure you leave most of your cash in the hotel safe…you know how much better the beer tastes when you can only have a half…!

 My husband and I set off on our adventure.  Forging into a future which will become an intrinsic part of our timeline; a future that will become our past – and an integral part of who we are.

About Julie-Ann:

Julie-Ann began writing ‘seriously’ on January 1^st 2008.  She had her first short story published in the ‘Devils, Demons and Werewolves’ Anthology in 2010.  She has had articles published in the online Arts and Culture magazine, ‘Beat,’ and also ‘The Writing Magazine.’

You can read her interview with thriller writer RJ Ellory in this month’s issue of ‘Beat.’  www.beatmagazine.co.uk and also read about her excitement at the Hay Literary Festival in June 2011 http://www.beatmagazine.co.uk/a-very-fantastic-journey-an-open-mic-night-at-the-hay-literary-festival-2011

She has completed the first draft of her first novel, which is set partly in the Spanish Civil War.  She tweets as aspirinnovelist and can be contacted via her e-mail – jacorrigan-writer@live.co.uk