‘Oh yes,’ I said weakly, glancing at my unread paper and thinking of the croissant I had just bought and had been looking forward to for the last hour. ‘So…?’ I tried to stay focussed on what Michael was saying but, as usual, when he held forth on Europe, my concentration wavered. Where was my nice pot of jam? I hoped Rosie hadn’t finished it all off.
‘Now this is really exciting,’ he was saying, ‘It’s going to be very popular with voters, I just know it. All politicians, across Europe, will sign up to this agreement, declaring that they are beyond reproach. Voluntary self-regulation and a move towards a different relationship between people and politicians. Bring back respect.’ He chattered away confidently in that way he had that what he was saying was of great interest to the listener. ‘We shouldn’t behave like ordinary people, civilians, the ones doing ordinary jobs, leading ordinary lives, like going to the park, or making dinner, or watching Strictly Come Whatever. Instead, we non-civilians will be shining lights, exhibiting impeccable human behaviour, so that others, the civilians know how to behave.’
‘Is that really what you politicians think is a good way to spend taxpayers’ money?’
‘Yes! Everyone hates a sleazy politician, the one who accept backhanders or are just in it for the perks and the free lunches…’
‘It sounds like you are asking for trouble, Michael,’ I said. ‘Setting yourself up as a beacon of respectability.’
‘Well…’
‘You won’t be able to put a foot wrong,’ I said, thinking that life with Michael was just one extended episode of Politics Today. ‘You can’t forget to put something through on the self-service tills or drive in a cycle lane or park in a disabled space…’
‘I have no intention of such things,’ he said. ‘I never go self-service and I am meticulous about staying out of cycle lanes. Anyway, it’s the idea – the ideal! – which is the thing. Striving to be better, that’s it. Upholding common, decent values. Morals are too easily running down life’s plughole.’
‘It seems as though you are setting yourselves a very high bar,’ I said. ‘Beyond reproach? It doesn’t give you much room to be human.’
‘Ah, but we aren’t human. Well, we are, technically. But we are above human… I mean, superhuman…’
I looked at his face. He was entirely serious. ‘As in Superman, superhuman?’ I had to make sure he was saying what I thought he was saying. ‘Actually superhuman, or just super humans?’
He looked confused. ‘Superhuman,’ he said. ‘More than human.’
‘Right. Michael…’ I toyed with trying to discuss this with him but, as I usually did, I gave up. ‘It sounds like a complete waste of EU money, if you ask me.’
‘Well, I don’t and nor do many – very many – of my EU colleagues.’ He sounded annoyed. ‘It’s going to be voted on in a few weeks. Before we break up for summer. It’s the directive that’s going to make my name.’
Not for the first time, I thought that Michael’s pomposity would be his undoing.
‘Hi Dad,’ Rosie came into the kitchen and again I saw how pale she was. She’d lost weight, she was just wearing leggings and a long top, her hair scrunched up onto her head.
‘What are you doing home?’ she said, surprised but not displeased to see him. He was like a forgotten-about lodger, sometimes. We never knew when we would be graced by his presence but neither of us minded either way. Michael didn’t try to parent too heavily or husband too deeply, and we never complained about his peripatetic attitude to the home, so it all worked quite well. He loved Rosie, that was clear, albeit in his own way. She knew it and had, I thought, never felt a particular lack. He just wasn’t one of those rough-and-tumble dads or even the bedtime-story dads… and that seemed okay. Good enough.
‘And how’s Daddy’s little politician?’ He ruffled her hair affectionately.
‘She’s fine,’ said Rosie, flatly. He glanced at me, as though he had heard my concerns. Rosie was normally far chattier and full of life. But this had become her usual way of late, low-enthusiasm and energy.
‘Now, I hope you’re working hard. Mammy says you are.’ He looked at her intently. ‘Is everything all right? Are you eating properly? There’s some Weetabix in the cupboard.’
‘Weetabix!’ she said. ‘Is that your answer to everything?’
‘It’s a good, healthy cereal,’ he said, looking hurt. ‘It’s a good stomach-settler.’
‘Can we just stop the inquisition? Am I working, am I eating? Yes I am and no I would rather chew my own Ugg boots than eat Weetabix. I eat granola. You should know that.’
Michael wasn’t an emotions man. He liked rationality and reason. No crying, slight hysteria or shaky voices. Rosie, being a normal teenager, would display every human emotion in just one conversation, which always had a slightly destabilising and unnerving effect on Michael.
‘I do know that, Rosie,’ he said, a politician’s smile plastered on his face. ‘I just merely forgot your breakfast preferences for one moment. And anyone is allowed to do that from time to time.’ He was desperately trying to bring the conversation back to Politics Today but things were often far more Loose Women.
‘Now, I was just saying to Mammy here that we should pop into Trinity together. I can show you around… the library, the cafeteria, that kind of thing. My old favourite lecture theatre… Trinity’s hallowed gates.’
‘So you keep saying…’ she said, the slightly terrified look in her eyes reappeared anytime Trinity was mentioned.
‘Next stop for you, Rosie,’ he pressed, ‘is politics. What do you say?’ But before Rosie could answer there was a beep of a horn outside. ‘Right, time to go,’ he said. ‘Meeting in Drogheda. Right,’ he said, clicking his heels together and giving us a salute. ‘I’m off. Had my Weetabix… your favourite, Rosie…’
‘Da-aad…’
‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘But I might bring you back a bumper box of 72 when I’m next home. You will like them… much better than fannying around with muesli…’
Rosie was smiling, despite herself.
‘By the way, Mammy,’ he said. ‘Was that ordinary milk I just had?’
‘Supermarket’s finest,’ I said.
‘It wasn’t organic or from goats or anything strange like that.’
‘No... Why?’
‘Just had an idea,’ he said. ‘You don’t get anywhere without ideas.’ He kissed Rosie on the head, gave me a friendly tap on the arm and gathered his briefcase and rushed outside. ‘Remember, lights off!’ he shouted behind him as the door slammed. ‘Standards must be upheld!’
*
The Thomas family was rather different to the Fogarty’s political dynasty bursting with heirs all born to rule. In my family, the only destiny we seemed to follow was having one-daughter. Both my mother, my grandmother and I had just the one girl but Rosaleen, and Nora had their babies out of wedlock. My rebellion was to do it within the conventional confines of marriage.
Rosaleen was an unmarried mother at a time when it was possibly the most shocking thing anyone could do apart from eat garlic or refuse to go to Mass. When she discovered her pregnancy, she told no one anything. Not a word. Not even Nora’s father who was a boy from back home in West Cork… but already married. She left home, saying she was heading off to Dublin to work, but kept her pregnancy a secret, kept her baby and brazened it out. It takes a tremendous amount of guts to do that, to stare down the gossips and the whisperers and the elbow-nudgers. Force of personality and determination got her through.
My paternity was never up for much of a discussion. As far as I know, I was conceived at a music festival so the chances of me discovering who he was were lost in a haze of hallucinogenic substances. Not the most conventional start to my life. But that was Nora. She didn’t do normal.
I thought Nora was going to faint when I told her that I was getting married. To Michael. ‘What?’ She looked horrified and didn’t try to hide her shock. ‘You can’t. Tab, you can’t… he’s…’
‘He’s what?’