Free A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy Page B

hospital?’
    ‘Well, there were nurses around and other mothers having babies.’
    ‘But there was nobody of your own with you?’
    ‘No. What does it matter now? It’s long ago.’
    ‘It must have been terrible for you.’
    There was a silence.
    ‘We are going to call them Rosie and Macken,’ he said.
    ‘That will be nice.’
    ‘You did say you didn’t want us to call her Nuala.’
    ‘Yes I did, Rigger, and I meant it. Stop apologising. Rosie is fine.’
    ‘She’s going to run the world, Mam. Her and her brother.’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    And then she was gone.
    What kind of woman could care so little about the birth of grandchildren? It wasn’t normal. But then, since that night after the episode in Malone’s butcher’s shop, Mam had not been normal. Had he in fact driven her mad?
    Rigger would not allow it to get him down. This was the best day of his life.
    It would not be ruined.
    There was no shortage of people to help with the twins, and the babies grew to feel equally at home in their own house and in the big house. They would sleep in their pram while Chicky and Carmel went through catalogues and fabric samples at the kitchen table. Or if everyone was out, Miss Queenie sat there staring into the two little faces. And occasionally picking Gloria up on to her lap in case the cat felt jealous.
    Nasey announced that he was going to get married in Dublin to a really wonderful woman called Irene. He hoped that Rigger and Carmel would come to his wedding.
    They discussed it. They didn’t want to leave home, and yet they wanted to be there to support Nasey as he had them. They were also dying to see this Irene. They had thought Nasey was well beyond romance. It would be the ideal way for them to meet Nuala on neutral ground.
    ‘She’ll be bowled over when she sees the children,’ Rigger said.
    ‘We can’t take Rosie and Macken.’
    ‘We can’t leave them.’
    ‘Yes we can. For one night. Chicky and Miss Queenie will look after them. My mother will. There’s a dozen people who will.’
    ‘But I want her to meet them.’ Rigger sounded like a six-year-old.
    ‘Yes, when she is ready she’ll meet them. She’s not ready yet. Anyway, it would be making us centre stage at the wedding with our twin babies. It’s Nasey and Irene’s day.’
    He saw it was sensible but his heart was heavy at the mother who couldn’t reach out in such a little way. He knew that Carmel was right. Not this time: it was enough that he would see his mother again. Things must be done in stages.
    When Rigger saw his mother, he hardly recognised her. She seemed to have aged greatly. There were lines in her face that he never remembered and she walked with a stoop.
    Could all this have happened in such a short time?
    Nuala was perfectly polite to Carmel but there was a distance about her that was almost frightening. During the party in the pub, Rigger pulled his cousin Dingo aside.
    ‘Tell me what’s wrong with my mam? She’s not herself.’
    ‘She’s been that way for a good bit,’ Dingo said.
    ‘What way? Like only half listening?’
    ‘Sort of not there. Nasey says it was all the shock of . . . Well, whatever it was back then.’
    Dingo didn’t want to rake up bad memories.
    ‘But she must be over that now,’ Rigger cried. ‘Things are different now.’
    ‘She felt she made a total bags of raising you. That’s what Nasey says. He can’t persuade her that it’s nonsense.’
    ‘What can I do to tell her?’
    ‘It’s got to do with the way she feels inside. You know, like those people who think they’re fat and starve themselves to death. They have no image of themselves. She probably needs a shrink,’ Dingo said.
    ‘God Almighty, isn’t that desperate.’ Rigger was appalled.
    ‘Here, I don’t want you getting all down about it. It’s Nasey and Irene’s day. Stick a smile on your face, will you.’
    So Rigger stuck a smile on his face and even managed to sing ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’, which went