Ailbhe straightened up. ‘Sorry! Absolutely right. My bad.’
‘So,’ Lindy carried on. ‘If you want a milder trip, you can eat half of your box and that should— Oh.’ Lindy had made her way back in front of them to find both Roe’s and Eileen’s boxes empty.
‘We may as well go all in,’ Eileen announced.
Forty-five minutes later, Ailbhe was swimming breaststroke through a river of balls. Her animal friends from the jungle were smiling beatifically at her from the banks on either side.
She spread her arms out in front of her, propelling her forward towards Eilers, who was standing just beyond the river, her upper body entirely slumped forward, swinging her arms back and forth as she muttered incantations.
‘Mam.’ She pulled herself from the river and slithered over to Eilers’ feet. She reached up to touch her mother’s hands, and briefly their fingers connected and blurred together. Looking up above her mother to the dark sky, she saw stars streaking overhead. Aeons passed, and from her mother’s half-whispered, half-sung words, Ailbhe learned the meaning of life, and the joy of it swelled inside her until she floated up, up, up and grasped her mother around her waist. ‘I have to find a pen before I forget what you said. You are so wise.’
‘I know my daughter.’ Her mother drifted down to sit beside her. ‘But you are in danger of fecking things up right now.’
The joy balloon started to deflate.
‘Mam, please, no life talk – don’t kill the vibe.’ Ailbhe looked round, desperate for a distraction. Across the huge space, Roe was smiling with her eyes closed as she stood cuddling and petting a stretch of wall. Ailbhe couldn’t even see Lindy. Who would rescue her from the dark turn this mother–daughter communion was taking?
‘I’m doing the opposite of buzz-killing. I want to tell you about the day I fell in love. It’s a beautiful story.’ Eilers lay back and Ailbhe joined her. Hands behind their heads, they looked up at the sky, which was a lovely neat little square. Ailbhe snuggled closer to her mam.
‘I was watchingGrange Hillat your nanny’s house one day when these horrible pains started up. I wanted to see if Doyle was going to be caught out in his light-bulb bootlegging scheme and if anyone would find out about Alan’s smoking behind the bike shed, but the pains were getting worse and worse and eventually I had to admit that the baby was coming. I didn’t want to tell Daddy and Mam because they had barely looked at me as I’d gotten bigger and bigger. Your aunty Philo was home from London so I asked her to bring me to the hospital. The birth was murder: the epidural seemed to only work on one side but the doctor wouldn’t listen to me, I think because I was only seventeen and because of my accent. Snotty little shite was probably not that much older than me. Anyway, I was pushing this stubborn little thing for ages and eventually the doctor said he was doing a vacuum-assisted delivery. I thought he was talking about a hoover but then they came in with – no joke – what looked like a plunger to suck your big huge head out of me! It was hysterical. Me and Philo were in bits. In the end, I think the laughing helped you pop out better than the plunger. And that was the day we met. When I first saw your face, scrunched up and pissed off, I was laughing and I couldn’t stop for days because I was so happy and in love.’
Ailbhe smiled but the story made her sad. Had she felt that way about Tilly? About Tom?
‘Everyone feels it differently.’ Eilers on shrooms apparently read minds.
‘Do you think I shouldn’t have married Tom?’ Ailbhe whispered. ‘I think I do love him, but I’ve been scared of letting go of my freedom. And I feel bad because the truth is I haven’t been honest about who I am. He’s overreacting about the drinking and stuff because I never let him see that side of me. I deliberately kept it from him. That’s bad, isn’t it?’
‘Ailbhe, I think when it comes to Tom you are one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat and, to be honest, staying on the dock is not an option because you have Tilly now.’
‘I feel like a teenager still, though.’
‘Ha,’ Eilers barked. ‘I actuallywasa teenager, Ailbhe. That’s not an excuse that’ll work with me!’
‘But I don’t think I know how to do this,’ Ailbhe wailed.
‘Ailbhe. Let me tell you something that my father told me … Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars.’
‘What?’
‘Yes … So whenever you feel alone …’
‘Wait, is this—?’ Ailbhe sat up to look down at her mother. ‘Is this Mufasa and Simba fromThe Lion King?’
‘I need a good big drink of water.’ Eilers vaulted up to standing. ‘Maybe a bath,’ she added and strode purposefully towards the big multipacks of Ballygowan that Lindy had brought.
OK, she is very high but she is also right. I need to grow up and step off the dock.
Across the room, Eilers squealed like a child as she tipped a bottle over her head and lapped at it. ‘It’s so fizzy!’
Ailbhe made her way across the playroom to Roe who was now, it seemed, whispering to the tiny ballerina in a small musical box.God, they’re all so high.Then Ailbhe noticed that she herself was crawling and not walking. ‘Roe!’
Roe looked up, startled, then immediately shushed the ballerina. ‘Not a word,’ she warned it.
‘I know what I need to do now … Eilers was amazing – she told me all this stuff about why we’re here and shit. Aaand she made me realise that I haven’t fully committed to Tom. I’ve been lying to Tom.’
‘That’s right, you have!’ Roe’s eyes gleamed as if this was some exciting news she was just discovering.
‘No, not about that.’ Ailbhe grabbed her friend. ‘Or notjustabout that. About my drinking and stuff. I’ve been trying to clean up my act. I want to show him I am committed to being a family. It’s really hit me – everything wonky that’s ever happened to me has been when I was high or drunk.’
