‘But you have money to spend now, Mum! You’re not that old, you still look pretty good. Shopping is what women do these days, Mum, they like to keep themselves looking nice. Lana looks fantastic for her age, she dresses so well that sometimes people think that her and Josephine are sisters!’
Hannah laughed in derision. This was too much for her now. ‘So who thinks that then, eh? Did this person happen to have a white stick and a fucking dog by any chance? Sisters! Now I’ve heard fecking everything.’
Michael pushed his plate away angrily, knocking over his glass of Guinness in the process and revealing the bitterness he tried so desperately to keep in check.
‘Do you know what, Mum? Josephine’s right about you. You are so fucking negative. No matter what she tries to do, no matter what she says, you never give her a chance. She got tickets for that West End show you said you wanted to see, and you turned her down flat. You actually sneered at her as if anyone wanting to go was a fucking moron.’
Hannah shook her head in self-righteous denial. ‘You are wrong there, son, I’m telling you.’
‘I was there, Mum, remember? I saw the way you reacted and I swallowed my knob because Josephine asked me to. I was all for having a fucking straightener once and for all. I tell you now, Mum, if it had been left to me, this would have been over a long time ago.’
Hannah was watching her son wide-eyed. She was aware that she had to try and rein herself in, but it was too late. Michael was so angry and disappointed in her, she had no option but to let him vent his spleen.
‘Then she got tickets to go and see The Dubliners, and you still fucking blanked her. I grew up listening to you telling me how The Dubliners were the greatest Irish band of all time. You have every album they have ever made, yet you passed up the chance to see them live. I thought you would have snatched her hand off, but, oh no, you were too busy making sure she knew her place in your fucking world. The Dubliners were the soundtrack of my childhood, Mum. I know every word to “Danny Boy”, “Boolavogue”, “Four Green fucking Fields”, “Kevin Barry” and “The fucking Galway Shawl”. The one chance you had to go and see them in the flesh, and you said no because poor Josephine asked you to go with her. She is a nice girl, Mum, because anyone else would have told you to get fucked years ago. You sit round her mum and dad’s, and everyone knows you don’t really want to be there. You act like you are doing us all a favour or something. Well, don’t bother in future. If you can’t get along with my wife, then I have no option, do I? If I have to choose between you, I’ll choose my Josephine.’
Michael could see the genuine hurt on his mother’s face. He was all she had, but that had been her choice – she had never wanted anyone else. And, even though he loved her with his entire being, he knew he had to put a stop to this. She’d had it her own way for far too long. Josephine had done everything physically possible to try and find some kind of common ground, find something that might bring them closer. It was clearly never going to happen. He could see that now. His mother was just too Irish, too focused on him and too proud. If she had her way, he would still be living at home with her when he was forty-five.
Michael was a man in his own right, a man to be reckoned with. He was not a kid, and he was not going to humour her. It stopped now.
Hannah just stared at her son, unable to believe that he had said such awful things to her. She knew he had meant every word. She had asked for the majority of it – even she could see that. But he was her only child. She had reared him single-handedly, and devoted her whole life to him. What else did she have?
The doorbell rang loudly, shattering the silence that lay between them. She felt the urge to scream in anguish, to give her pain an outlet, make her son understand how much he was hurting her, see his disloyalty before it was too late.
Michael was out of his chair like a bullet out of a gun, evidently relieved to get away from her. It was as though he wanted nothing more at this moment in time than to be as far away from her as physically possible.
Hannah was fuming. She knew who it was. Trust Josephine Callahan to turn up now. If she didn’t know any better, she would think she had planned it.
Chapter Fifteen