‘Yes,’ I said weakly. ‘Yes she is.’ I looked over desperately at Mary, whose lip-biting and worried expression did nothing to reassure me.
‘It must be an issue that she feels very strongly about for her to protest at her daughter’s place of work.’
‘She’s a very principled woman,’ I said, diplomatically. Or annoying. And frustrating and bloody minded. I smiled at Barry.
‘And you’re not.’
‘Principled? No I am. I really am. It’s just that we just have different principles.’
‘Hers is to save the environment and yours is to destroy it. Yes?’
‘No! I love the environment. I love trees. Who doesn’t love trees? I mean, I even have a wood-burning stove at home.’
‘So you like to burn dead trees but not enjoy them in their living state.’
‘No… I…’ God, this Barry was good. He was twisting everything to ensure he got a splash from this.
‘So how are you going to resolve this issue?’
‘I am not sure yet,’ I said, ‘but it will be. You see, Barry,’ I said, trying to summon up some wisdom. Something moving, something that would make him and the viewers at home see that at times difficult decisions had to made but that things would work out. Trust and love. Bravery and… having the courage in your convictions. That was it. Right, something profound… ‘You see, Barry, I believe the children are our future.’ What was I saying? It came from deep within me. Words I had heard once and had never forgotten. It wasn’t… it wasn’t Whitney Houston was it? ‘Teach them well and let them lead the way.’ It was Whitney. Barry was looking at me, utterly bewildered, all his smart-arsery gone. ‘What? Let the pupils make the decision?’ He obviously was not a Whitney fan. More fool him, I thought. But I knew Red was fully familiar with her oeuvre and I saw his mouth was twitching from behind Barry, trying not to laugh. This day was not going well.
‘No, I meant, I just… oh I don’t know.’
Shrugging, shaking his head, he turned to the camera. ‘Barry Whelan, for the Six O’clock News, at the environmental stand-off at the Star of the Sea school in Dalkey.’
The Dalkey Wildlife Defenders were huddled in a little group and obviously delighted at their success. Arthur was pouring something from a saucepan into mugs and handing them around and they were clinking them. Robbo gave me a thumbs up a big smile and what looked suspiciously liked a Heinz tomato soup moustache. Nora shouted something.
‘What?’ I shouted back.
‘No hard feelings!’ she called.
Round one to them.
Red and Mary joined me, Mary’s face said it all, her mouth a wobble of uncertainty.
‘What do you think?’ I said to the two of them. ‘Have I just made a complete mess of it all?’
‘You did really well,’ Mary lied. ‘He was unnecessarily personal, I thought.’
I glanced at Red who pushed his hands through his hair, his face inscrutable.
‘They might not show it,’ went on Mary. ‘There’ll probably be a bigger story that will go instead. Like a fire. Or a robbery. We’ve just got to pray for bigger news.’
‘Red?’ I was desperate to know what he thought. He must think I’m a total fool. A proper idiot.
‘I think you are doing brilliantly,’ he said, ‘under very difficult circumstances.’
‘But Red, I made children cry. And now I’ve quoted Whitney Houston on national television.’
He laughed then. ‘That was my favourite bit, it has to be said.’
I looked at Mary who was desperately trying to stop her mouth from smiling.
‘I don’t know why you didn’t go the whole hog and quote Johnny Logan...’ He began speaking in an actor’s voice, ‘don’t, don’t close your heart to how you feel. Dream, and don’t be afraid the dream’s not real… close your eyes, pretend it’s just the two of us again… make believe this moment’s here to stay…’
Mary was laughing outwardly now.
‘It’s too soon for humour,’ I tried to say. ‘I’m not ready.’
But they two of them began singing loudly, together… ‘Hold me now… don’t cry. Don’t say a word, just hold me now and I will know though we’re apart, we’ll always be together, forever in love…’
Red had his arm around Mary and they swayed side to side, laughing and singing lustily. But they weren’t quite finished, what do you say when words are not enough…’
When the performance was finally over, I said. ‘I never had you down as a Johnny Logan fan, Mary. I thought you were better than that?’
‘Never!’ he said, grinning. ‘Eurovision 1987. What a year! When Ireland couldn’t lose the damn thing!’
‘Johnny Forever!’ said Mary. ‘Well that’s what I had scribbled on all my school books. I was going to get it tattooed. But then I realised it wasn’t Johnny I fancied but Linda Martin.’
Red turned to Mary. ‘We should do karaoke sometime. You can be Linda Martin. I’ll be Johnny.’
‘I’ll hold you to that, Redmond!’ she said, as we watched him run off back into school. ‘Lifts the spirits he does.’
*
Mary’s hopes that we might get knocked off the news by a flood or an armed robbery didn’t come to pass. It was, unfortunately a slow news day. Clodagh texted just before 6pm:
Watch the Six, you’ve made it. Fame at last. Just remember I am a puppet in the hands of evil producer Lucinda.
It was such an occasion that Rosie left her bedroom to come and watch that night’s news. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to see me being bamboozled by a child journalist.
She was looking better. Maybe it had just been a lack of breakfast and a sleepless night that had caused her panic attack at Celia’s party. She was even chatty and had brought down her varnish to paint her nails while watching TV, I noted with approval. She used to do that kind of thing all the time. Whatever stress she had been under had passed, I was sure of it.
On screen, Clodagh was, as always, dressed impeccably in a crisp white shirt and statement necklace, hair smoothed into a perfect bob, as she went through all the news, the national, the international, effortlessly interviewing trade unionists and politicians. Then we had sport, long and detailed accounts of big matches and small.
‘They’ve put you at the end,’ said Rosie. ‘You’re the And Finally.’
‘That’s a good thing,’ I decided. ‘They won’t give much time to it, then. If they do it at all.’ I was still hopeful.
‘The things is, Mum,’ she said. ‘You’re not going to win this.’
‘What do you mean I’m not going to win this? I don’t want to win. I don’t see it as a competition.’ But it was, and I wanted to win. As, I supposed my mother did too.
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘But from an outside perspective, you represent the corporate fat cats, the developers. Granny is standing up for trees.’
‘Really? That’s what people would think?’ Nobody liked fat cats, that was for sure. ‘I’m just trying to do the right thing for the pupils,’ I insisted. ‘Anyway, just because she’s for the trees doesn’t mean she’s right.’
‘I’m not saying that,’ she said, ‘but it’s about the popular vote, isn’t it? She’s going to win that easily.’ See, a politician’s child always thinks about things like this.
‘Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions,’ I said. ‘It would be much easier to spend one’s life at protests and saying no to everything. Try doing a nine-to-five job and have two hundred parents breathing down your neck every day. I know I’m the Dalkey equivalent of Amazonian loggers destroying the rainforest. I wouldn’t be surprised if your grandmother invited Sting down to sing about trees and squirrels.’
Rosie laughed.
‘You’re on her side,’ I teased, pleased to hear her lovely laugh again. ‘Oh, I see where your loyalties lie.’
‘I’m on yours, obviously,’ she insisted. ‘But I can also see Granny’s point.’
I thought back to Red and Mary’s duet earlier. ‘Or Johnny Logan. He might be cheaper than Sting. Although I don’t think Johnny sings much about tree felling and environmental destruction.’
‘Johnny who? What are you going on about?’