Excerpt: 'At the end of the conversation, she raises her glass to me to toast the two children. I lift my Coke glass to hers, cracking the ice in my mouth afterwards. I know this information is dangerous'
Writer and journalist Noelle McCarthy shares an extract here from her new book, Grand. Noelle grew up in Cork with an alcoholic mother who raged against her life. She could be both vicious and tender with her children and her father was largely absent. Desperate to get away, Noelle left for New Zealand soon after leaving college where she became a very successful journalist and broadcaster.
It is one of Mammy’s hideaways, she has nooks and crannies all over the city. Wherever we go, she tends to sit where she can watch the door, she hates being surprised by anyone while she’s drinking. Mammy is an expert on this because of her psychiatric nursing training. But she is always pleasant enough to her, until one day when she isn’t and then this bar on the quay is no longer an option. Advertisement
Official vs secret I am either the eldest of four or the third of six, depending on whether you want the official history of our family or the secret one. Tara and Jonathan are my sister and brother. The girl may not be called Tara anymore – she was adopted in Dublin. Jonathan died soon after he was born. He is buried in a graveyard in Blackrock, where the river Lee meets the sea in Cork City.
Mammy had Jonathan in the mid to late ’70s, maybe eighteen months before me. She never gives exact dates, I work all this out decades later. In my memory, that day in The Left Bank, she has a pint in front of her but seems quite sober. She never again talks to me about Jonathan or Tara unless she’s been drinking heavily. It is hard to make sense of her when she is like that, even if I wanted to – which I don’t, especially not when she is talking about these children.
Into the void She will scream this at me and at my father and as time goes on, she will scream it at my brother and my sister. She does it to make maximum trouble, to demand our attention.
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