Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [109]
Ted arrived back to oversee the final preparations. He was keen that Marcus and Ashling hit it off so that he could advance his stand-up career through close contact with Marcus. ‘Look sexy,’ he urged, slouched on Ashling’s bed, watching her apply her third and final layer of mascara.
‘I’m TRYING!’ she heard herself shout. Clearly she was more nervous than she’d realized. Look at what hope did to her! Sending all her longing for love and stability on the rampage, and turning her into a nervous wreck. Sometimes, like now, she thought perhaps she felt too much. Was this normal? she wondered. Probably. And if it wasn’t? Well, she’d had a deprived childhood, she thought wryly.
OK, maybe not deprived deprived. But deprived of routine, deprived of ordinariness. After her mother’s first bout of depression, normal service had never really resumed. Instead, life as they’d all known it had slipped away. For ever: though they didn’t know this at the time.
The irony of it was that initially Ashling had actually been excited when regular mealtimes began to be neglected. When she got a grass-mark on her cardigan, she was glad not to be shouted at. But as the days passed, eventually even she could see that the clothes she was putting on were filthy. Relief had given way to anxiety. This isn’t right
‘Will I wear this today?’ She presented herself to her mum in a filthy summer dress. Notice me, notice me.
Her mum’s dead eyes looked out from a face dragged down in formless grief. ‘If you want.’
Janet and Owen were kitted out no better. And neither was her mum – she’d always been so pretty and nicely dressed and now didn’t even notice that she was out in public wearing a shirt stained with egg.
That summer they went to the local park a lot. Monica used to exclaim, ‘I can’t stay in this house,’ and hustle all of them out. But even in the park she rarely stopped crying, and she never had a hanky. So Ashling, thinking it inappropriate that her mother wiped her tears with her sleeve, began to fold a tissue into her cardigan pocket every time they went out.
Once at the park Ashling would try to stage-manage things so that at least Janet and Owen had fun. When they agitated for ice-cream, Ashling was very anxious that they should get it: should they become upset, she feared it would blow the lid off everything. But her mother never remembered to bring any money, so Ashling had a pink and brown plastic purse in the shape of a dog’s face which she began to bring instead.
As the summer advanced, Monica developed a new and alarming habit. Sitting listlessly on a bench, she would pluck and tear at a cut on her arm, only satisfied when it started to bleed. It was around then that Ashling began to carry a small bundle of Band-Aids around with her.
Something had to give. Surely someone had to notice?
She began to pray that her mother would get better and that her father wouldn’t go away every Monday morning and not come back until Friday. Then, when prayers didn’t produce the desired results, she incubated a bizarre conviction that if she flushed the toilet three times whenever she used it, everything would be all right. Next she developed the notion that when she came down the stairs she had to do a twirl at the bottom. Simply had to, and if she forgot to do it she had to go back to the top of the stairs and do the whole ritual again.
Superstitions started to take on great importance. If she saw one magpie – sorrow – she anxiously scanned the sky for a second one – joy. One day she spilt salt and to avoid any more