I sat in Nana's kitchen last week, making idle chit-chat while she made dinner. "We got a present of a canteen of cutlery last week" I told her. "It came with a 50 year guarantee. I put it under the bed, with the glasses". We have nowhere in our little home to keep canteens of cutlery or crystal wineglasses. Other people's aspirations for our married life exceed our means at the moment. "At least you won't get any holy statues" she said. The Child of Prague is up in the back bedroom in her house, a sellotape collar supporting his head and his painted robes all chipped and faded. She keeps the coins herself and my grandad exchanged with their rings tucked under his base. Her luck money. I must get her to leave the statue in the garden the night before the wedding, to guarantee us good weather.
She has a statue of the Sacred Heart in her bedroom. "I wouldn't part with him for the world" she says "he was a present from your grandad". She means my great grandfather. Sometimes when she's talking to me about her life and how she's lived it, she confuses me with my mother. But she doesn't talk about these things much at all. She went on to point out the glass cupboard in the corner of the kitchen as another of their wedding presents, this one a gift from my grandfather's aunts. In it she keeps the trinkets and souvenirs she's been given over the years, little knick-knacks brought home to her from holidays. When we were little we were allowed to play with them, but only sometimes, if we were good and we were careful. There's a little stoppered bottle there with notes written by my me and my brother stuffed inside. I took one out a few years ago with a pin and some patience. The ink had run and our signatures looked childish. Names and ages. We couldn't think what other trace of ourselves we might like to leave.
She went on to tell me about how, when they'd married, she and my grandad moved to a small flat in Rathmines, like the one Andrew and I share now. It had two rooms, again, like our own. She spoke about it with affection, though it can't have been easy, having two small children there. When she fell pregnant with a third (my mother) her own mother suggested that they move back into the family home on Mount Tallant Avenue and apply for a house of their own from the council. So they moved to share the small two-up-two-down with her parents and brothers and stayed there until they were offered a place of their own, two more children later, and a fifth child on the way.
The new house was across the road, which was handy, she said, because at the time she was nursing her mother. She was suffering from cardiac asthma, and would often take ill at night. She'd wake up wheezing, unable to breathe, and the doctor would have to be brought up to the house. "She smoked" Nana said. They moved into their new home in October, the house she still calls home. One morning the following January she called over to check on her ma and found her dead in her bed. She went and found her da, told him that her ma was very sick, "though I knew she was dead" she said, and then walked down to Clarnico Murray's factory at the end of Mount Tallant Avenue to fetch her brothers.
She doesn't remember anything that happened after that. The following two or three days, she says, are just missing. She didn't even remember them at the time. She supposes that there must have been some fuss, but she couldn't say. A month later, on February 21st, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy. 21 years later, on February 21st, my mam gave birth to me. My nana says little about her ma and how much she misses her, but when I shared this story with my mam she said "write that down, will you?"
So I have. And in 50 years time when we're all living on Mars and skitting around on hoverboards and my granddaughter asks me about how it was for me and her grandad when we first got married, I'll have more than just my story to tell.
She has a statue of the Sacred Heart in her bedroom. "I wouldn't part with him for the world" she says "he was a present from your grandad". She means my great grandfather. Sometimes when she's talking to me about her life and how she's lived it, she confuses me with my mother. But she doesn't talk about these things much at all. She went on to point out the glass cupboard in the corner of the kitchen as another of their wedding presents, this one a gift from my grandfather's aunts. In it she keeps the trinkets and souvenirs she's been given over the years, little knick-knacks brought home to her from holidays. When we were little we were allowed to play with them, but only sometimes, if we were good and we were careful. There's a little stoppered bottle there with notes written by my me and my brother stuffed inside. I took one out a few years ago with a pin and some patience. The ink had run and our signatures looked childish. Names and ages. We couldn't think what other trace of ourselves we might like to leave.
She went on to tell me about how, when they'd married, she and my grandad moved to a small flat in Rathmines, like the one Andrew and I share now. It had two rooms, again, like our own. She spoke about it with affection, though it can't have been easy, having two small children there. When she fell pregnant with a third (my mother) her own mother suggested that they move back into the family home on Mount Tallant Avenue and apply for a house of their own from the council. So they moved to share the small two-up-two-down with her parents and brothers and stayed there until they were offered a place of their own, two more children later, and a fifth child on the way.
The new house was across the road, which was handy, she said, because at the time she was nursing her mother. She was suffering from cardiac asthma, and would often take ill at night. She'd wake up wheezing, unable to breathe, and the doctor would have to be brought up to the house. "She smoked" Nana said. They moved into their new home in October, the house she still calls home. One morning the following January she called over to check on her ma and found her dead in her bed. She went and found her da, told him that her ma was very sick, "though I knew she was dead" she said, and then walked down to Clarnico Murray's factory at the end of Mount Tallant Avenue to fetch her brothers.
She doesn't remember anything that happened after that. The following two or three days, she says, are just missing. She didn't even remember them at the time. She supposes that there must have been some fuss, but she couldn't say. A month later, on February 21st, she gave birth to another healthy baby boy. 21 years later, on February 21st, my mam gave birth to me. My nana says little about her ma and how much she misses her, but when I shared this story with my mam she said "write that down, will you?"
So I have. And in 50 years time when we're all living on Mars and skitting around on hoverboards and my granddaughter asks me about how it was for me and her grandad when we first got married, I'll have more than just my story to tell.
