*
The black ministerial car was parked outside the house, which meant Michael was home. Terry, his driver, reading a paper in the front seat of the Mercedes. Michael rarely made domestic appearances these days, arriving unexpectedly and disappearing just as quickly, shunting daily life out of its rhythm and he often asserted himself into the household in some way. Usually it was that the garden needed tidying at the front or he had been shocked to see a dead cheese plant in the hall.
After hopping through the ranks from local councillor to member of the Progressive Conservatives and a front-bench position, Michael had now made it to the giddy heights of Europe. He spent more time in Brussels than Dublin and all his talk, when he did come home, was about EU directives, policies and late-night votes and dining on steak and red wine and crème br?lée. He was good at the mechanics of politics, remembering every name of anyone he had ever shaken hands with, able to differentiate between constituents, who had the brother in hospital and who had the issue with the damp. And after being submerged in Bill Clinton’s autobiography, he emerged pale and drawn but excited by all the new techniques he had absorbed, such as finding a face in the crowd and waving, the double handshake and the disconcerting never breaking eye contact.
Politics was his passion; the deal making, the risk taking, the prestige, power and perks, along with a flat in Brussels and a studio in Dublin city centre. His was important work. The most important work, changing the world, one EU directive at a time.
Michael had grown up in the shadow of his father, Michael Sr, also a politician. He never watched children’s television, only the news, had never worn jeans, and saw politics as the family business. And he wanted Rosie to continue the family dynasty and do exactly what he did. Go to Trinity to do Law, get into local politics and then… well, next stop Brussels.
I harboured secret and treasonous thoughts that Law in Trinity was too much like hard work (and far too boring) and that no one – and definitely not my daughter - should be subjected to it. But then I wasn’t a Fogarty. After giving up her dreams of acting, Rosaleen, my grandmother had been front of house manager at the Gaiety Theatre all her life. Nora gave no credence to academic qualifications but everything to the ability to chain oneself to railings in protest. The only time I can remember feeling she was really proud of me was when I won first prize for my poster in a competition against Sellafield when I was twelve.
Unministerially, Michael was eating Weetabix. ‘Morning Mammy!’ he said. ‘Cold milk on cereal! Breakfast of champions. It’s the milk, though Irish milk from Irish farmers that makes it! Am I right?’
‘Hi Michael,’ I said, not bothering to tell him for the billionth time to call me Tabitha, rather than Mammy, and that he already had his own mother and didn’t need another one. ‘Um…’ I tried to formulate an opinion on milk.
‘Caught the red-eye from Brussels and needed my farmers’ association tie for the meeting in Dundalk,’ he went on blithely. ‘You need…’ he spooned the last drops of milk from his bowl into his mouth, ‘the right tie. Bill Clinton says it’s the killer move. Get it wrong and no one will trust you. Get it right, and putty in the hand!’
‘I suppose the same could be said for the handbag,’ I said, putting away the shopping, ‘too expensive and everyone mistrusts you…’
‘It’s an art,’ he said, as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘You have to think of who you are meeting and with farmers, it can’t be too flashy. It has to be just right. I’m thinking of a Donegal tweed. Well, that’s what Lucy has decreed.’
Michael’s best perk was Lucy, his secretary. Over the last two years she’d made it her life’s work to overhaul not just his office but also his image. There is now a more contemporary look to his hair and the cut of his suit. His fringe pushed up, lapels more city slicker than fusty politico. And his teeth have undergone a bleaching more thorough than any toilet and now gleam brighter than those of Tom Cruise’s.
‘I’m sure Lucy’s right,’ I said, trying to keep a facetious tone out of my voice. ‘She always is, isn’t she? That’s what you say.’
‘She’s a marvel,’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘Yes, yes, quite the marvel.’ His eyes went misty for a moment as we both contemplated the myriad ways Lucy was a marvel.
‘Now,’ he said, breaking focus, ‘where’s herself?’ He meant Rosie.
‘Upstairs. You know, Michael, the exams,’ I said, ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it. If there’s anything we could do, anything we should be doing to make it easier for her. They’re so awful. I think they might even be worse than when we did them. I mean, they seem to be even harder these days …’
‘She’ll be grand,’ he said, dismissing me. ‘Us Fogartys always are. I sailed through mine. She’s got a good brain, that’s all you need.’ Rosie, he believed, was more Fogarty than Thomas – the politics, the clear head, the methodical way of doing things. Chip off the old block. He’d been talking about Rosie going to Trinity, his alma mater, since before she was born, and as Rosie had done exceptionally well in her mock exams and had been offered a place, it was a case of just passing the finals and she’d be in.
‘Trinity College! She’s on her way.’ Michael put down the cereal bowl and actually rubbed his hands with sheer excitement. ‘I was just onto my old professor yesterday and we had a good chat about Trinity and how it’s changed. He said to bring Rosie in one of these days for a look round the place. Thought I would show her a few sights. The library. The old lecture hall, that kind of thing.’
‘She’s already been round…’
‘Ah, but not with me. An old boy, so to speak. Not that I’m old. Just older than I was.’ Michael was the same age as me, 42, but gave what he might think was a boyish grin and ruffled his own hair. Which he then quickly smoothed back in place.
‘Michael, it was more than twenty years since you were there.’
‘Technically, yes.’ He helped himself to another two Weetabix sprinkling them liberally with sugar and splashing on the milk. He took a mouthful. ‘The Fogarty name still opens doors, you know. We are not nobodies. We belong there and Rosie will be the fourth generation. Now…’ His face suddenly looked grave, like a headmaster disappointed in the child who had been caught smoking. ‘I need to talk to you…’
‘Really?’ What had I done now?
‘The hall light was on,’ he said. ‘Why? It’s a summer morning? There’s really no need.’
‘I must have flicked it by mistake…’
‘It’s not the expense,’ he said, shaking his head at my absent-mindedness. ‘But the waste. If I am seen as wasteful, then I am not setting a good example for my constituents. They expect me to have the highest of standards, Mammy. We must live up to that ideal.’
‘Yes, Michael.’ Over the years, I had learned to nod and agree.
‘I am a public figure,’ he went on, ‘and must be beyond reproach. SIPL!’
‘Sipple?’ Was this some new, utterly perplexing, mind-bending, borderline-barmy EU policy?
‘Standards in Public Life. It’s my latest directive. I’ve told you about it before…’