Short stories
From the pub to the page
I was always afraid of Creative Writing modules in school and university. Telling a short story for the Irish Leaving Cert was put in the too-hard basket by most teachers because it rarely weilded A1’s. As a result, most Irish teenagers are led to believe writing stories isn’t for them; in a culture drenched in storytelling, this couldn’t be further from the truth. It makes me sad that I haven’t been writing stories for longer due to this lack of belief - but there’s still time!
The Will
This is a story that I had completely forgotten about but that came up in conversation where all good yarns start - at the pub. The story is about an odd encounter with an ex-boyfriend’s parents. I promise not all my stories are about ex-lovers - just the good ones.
His sister had picked us up from Milton Keynes station. Their lack of similarity was disarming in the way that it sometimes is with siblings.
She was recently engaged which seemed unimaginably grown-up to me. Their parents had helped them buy a new-build at the corner of an estate which we stopped at on the way to the family home. We could hear the local traffic go by as we sat in their garden, where the only grass growing was through the grooves of the patio. We sat politely side-by-side, and I wondered if this was why people hated meeting their partner’s family.
If you don’t know anything about Milton Keynes, its defining feature is that it is the first UK city built on a grid system. Its other primary attribute (also geographical) is its high quota of roundabouts. He had told me a few stories of grey ‘MK’, generally leaning into the fact that it was a bit of a shithole but one he looked back on it fondly. He had a few friends there that he still kept in touch with.
I wouldn’t say he led me to believe he was rough around the edges, but he didn’t do anything to deter the preconception that being from Milton Keynes created, which was one of lower-middle-class greyness and strife. I’m sure he preferred it that way and was grateful to me for not questioning him further.
He needn’t have worried as I rarely questioned anything he said.
In fact, the only time I remember doing so was a month previous when he had told me he loved me. That I had queried - only to myself of course. Not that I didn’t believe him but the feelings weren’t mutual so I didn’t bring it up again. He was also on ketamine at the time so, either way, I’d had to take the declaration with a large pinch of horse tranquiliser.
Yet I did feel somewhat cheated when we drove through the gates of a wide-set manor house. I sensed his shame at his privilege and dishonesty by omission. We were greeted by his parents and what looked to be a small cast of extras from Midsomer Murders, laden with props; trowels, sunhats and yappy terriers.
They hadn’t always lived there, he told me, as soon as he’d closed the door on our wood-panelled bedroom. And they didn’t own the whole house. It was split into three, and there were other people their age living there too.
Still, I hadn’t been warned. It was not like most boyfriend’s parents' houses. Admittedly, that was more of a guess on my part as I hadn’t actually been to any other boyfriend’s parents’ house.
We had dinner outdoors amongst the rolling hills of their property. His dad was affable and agreeable like his son. He made an effort with me and was warm in nature. He liked that I was Irish. If they were wealthy on account of him, it was likely that he’d made it. His mum was the stronger character and dominated the conversation with forgettable topics. Her hair had the unnatural orange halo of dyed red hair. If the money came from her side, she was born into it.
I remember the food being ferried down from the main house and served to us. Casually, but by someone not in the family. The help but seemingly happier. A wobbly neighbour joined us and made an awkward joke about the drinking habits of the Irish. We hiked back up the hills in the dark.
He pushed me off him in bed which had never happened before. In fact, we’d never gone to bed and not had sex. I put it down to not wanting to leave evidence in the family home and felt embarrassed that I’d tried.
We were doing the pre-station drop-off dawdle the next day. We had just enough free time before leaving that it was awkward, most niceties had withered by then. His mum asked if I’d do them a favour. I agreed before hearing what it was. I was eager to make everything easy.
She said they needed a signature. They couldn’t ask the neighbours because they had the same address (even though the neighbours seemed like the type of people with more than one address) - and it was due the next day. Would I sign it?
He questioned the ceremony briefly but knew it would make little difference, so dropped his head in his hands and expressed his embarrassment by laughing.
I looked at the pages and saw that it was their will. The obligation to sign remained, and I tried to remember how I even wrote my signature, my learned motor skills became clunky, present and deliberate. The pen felt foreign in my fingers. I didn’t have time to do much other than scan the document and sign it. I saw his sister’s name but not his.
I remember feeling perversely affirmed that this might not be my first and only visit there - that by signing their will it indicated that I was in some way invited into their family. They thanked me and brought us to the train.
He broke up with me two weeks later. He didn’t give any reason for it which seemed uncharacteristically cruel. My friends remarked that they thought I would be the one to end it, not him. I agreed. Yet the sting of being the rejected one lasted. I woke up for months cringing, curling up as if to squeeze out the shame of it all. I stopped drinking in case I cried in public.
I should have got there first.
Mom’s Spaghetti
An ode to my mum’s dinners
As an Irish person living abroad, we’re often asked what our traditional ‘cuisine’ is.
Beef stew is the only answer here. But it does feel a bit unfair that it has become our national dish not from a place of pride, patriotism and popularity but rather more as a result of Irish people spending the best part of 1000 years starving. It also feels a bit rich calling a bungy gravy-like soup made up of scraps of meat and the cheapest vegetables available a ‘cuisine’ when the French have things like almond croissants and fondue to boast about.
I’d hear a bit about stew on the playground, usually accompanied by an exasperated moan. But we didn’t eat stew at home - thankfully, as it seemed like something to be avoided. When I asked my mum why she didn’t make it, she would recoil and say, “Ugh, stew. Stew’s horrible.”
My mum’s two signature dishes were instead ‘casseroles’. Eloquently named Red Casserole and Brown Casserole, the not-at-all-aligned-to-another-aforementioned-dish ingredients were beef, carrots, onion, stock and some flour. And since I’m sure you’re dying to know the difference between the two, the red varietal also included a tin of tomatoes. In later years, a third casserole was even introduced (not by popular demand, might I add): Chicken Casserole. In a flooring twist of events, chicken was used instead of beef as the meat component, and it also included some bonus peas. Chicken casserole soon held the title for Most Coveted Casserole (but still Least Coveted Meal), a change in palette luring my siblings and me (and our poor mum) into a false sense of security. But as with many cataclysmic soars to fame, it became apparent that it was the novelty that had set it apart from the others. And once that wore off, it plummeted to join the miserable Casserole Trifecta at the bottom of the food chain. Now any casserole being announced as the night’s dinner was a crushing blow. “Ugh, not casserole.”, we’d say. “Casserole’s horrible.”
So, as we got older, casserole mysteriously disappeared from the dinner menu and was replaced by dishes that looked and tasted suspiciously similar to it but sounded different. The new one-pot-wonders on the block had exotic names like Beef Bourguignon, Pepperpot Beef, Paprika Beef and Hungarian Goulash. And when questions arose about their similarity to, ehem, other beefy dishes, they were swiftly batted away, and we were assured that this was a new recipe from a magazine or recommended by a friend.
Whether this rebranding was a conscious or unconscious move by my mother has never been confirmed. Had she brainwashed herself into thinking these other continental variants were different things? Was she just too drained to care? Or was beef just always on offer at the supermarket?
I’d ask her now, but I’m still afraid of her.
To get to the bottom of the matter, I recently did a Google search on the subject that wielded some interesting results. And, as always, the questions that other people had asked were both better than mine and also comforting in their relatability.
“What’s a fancy name for beef stew?” said one.
The answer: “Goulash or Boeuf Bourguignon.”
“What is the definition of a casserole?”
A kind of stew that is cooked slowly in an oven.
“What does casserole mean in English?” said another.
“Casserole means stew.”
Right.