Inside, on the double-page spread in the paper was another photo of me, this one taken outside the school, looking wild-eyed and crazed on the day the protest began. The caption was ‘Wife Tobitha is again at the centre of another unusual domestic drama.’ All sane people would understand entirely why Michael would have chosen the serene and lovely Lucy the Marvel. Lucy the Mistress.
‘Tobitha!’ Rosie almost laughed.
‘Shhhh!’ I hissed. We were already drawing attention to ourselves with our increasing hysteria. ‘Let’s go back to our room.’
Gathering up the papers, we both ran up the stairs to our room and laid the papers on the bed.
‘Another unusual domestic drama. Oh my God.’ We looked at each other in shock and awe, my right hand gripping Rosie’s elbow while we devoured the paper. Poor Rosie, this was all she needed. So much for a magical, healing trip to West Cork. How could Michael do this to you? I thought, looking at Rosie. For God’s sake. Hadn’t she enough going on without her father being plastered over all the tabloids. I didn’t care about me, I realised. Michael and Lucy could do what they wanted and, in some weird way, I was glad for them, but Rosie was still a child. How could he do this to her?
‘Mum… I can’t… I can…’
‘Okay, just breathe,’ I commanded. ‘Just focus on breathing. All this is a shock. That’s it, just breathe. Don’t worry. It’s all going to be fine.’
Her hands were clenched, her eyes closed.
‘Come on,’ I urged, ‘come on, it’s okay…’
Finally, she opened her eyes. ‘I’m all right, I’m all right…’
‘Breathe into it, isn’t that what they said. Don’t try and run from it.’
Eventually she lifted her head. ‘Mum, this is actually worse than me ruining my entire future by not doing the Leaving Cert. It’s a sex scandal. The headline is F asterisk-asterisk K Me Foggy. We are now Fuck Me Foggy’s family, we are the Fuck Me Foggy family…’
‘The Fuck Me Foggy family… oh please not the Fuck Me Foggy family.’ And maybe there was something in the West Cork air, but we began to laugh, the horror and the hysterics causing us to lose control of ourselves, for the second time that day. Doubled over and becoming helpless every time the other one repeated the immortal phrase ‘the Fuck Me Foggy Family’.
‘Oh Rosie…’ I had managed to draw breaths. ‘I’m so sorry…’
‘They called you Tobitha.’ She pointed again to the picture of me and it started the two of us off again. ‘Tobitha!’
Eventually, exhausted from laughing, we began to sober up, reality setting in, we now had to face our new notoriety as the Fuck Me Foggy Family.
‘Miss Byrne would say that it’s about how you handle situations,’ said Rosie, looking carefully at the photographs, reading bits of the paper out. ‘You can panic and become hysterical or…’
‘Which we just did…’ I said. ‘You know we can never show our faces here in Schull again… We have now successfully made ourselves persona non-grata in Rosaleen’s home county…’
‘We should channel our inner Rosaleens. What would she do?’
‘Get on with it, I suppose. That’s what she did. In all my years knowing her, she never complained, never moaned. She just seemed happy, inside and out, you know? She would have handled it with aplomb.’
‘I like that word.’
‘I’ve never used it before. But it’s exactly the right word for her. Aplomb.’
‘Well, then let’s handle this with aplomb. Whatever it means exactly.’
‘She was just a handler of things, always unfazed. A glider through life’s crises. We’re from a long line of great women, you and I,’ I said. ‘Let’s live up to our legacy.’
‘Mum, I’ve often thought that I am more a Thomas than a Fogarty,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell Dad because he’s always said I’m a Fogarty, but I’ve always felt like a Thomas, like you and Grandma… and Rosaleen.’
‘Well, perhaps you’re the best of both of us,’ I said. ‘You’re a chip off both blocks.’ She linked her arm through mine and leaned into me. ‘But maybe you are just yourself, the wonderful Rosie.’
She was quiet for a moment. ‘It makes a kind of sense, though,’ she said, thoughtfully, ‘doesn’t it?’
‘What does?’
‘Dad and Lucy…’
I nodded in agreement. ‘I hate to say this, but they are perfect for each other. Much better than him and me… I hope that’s not too upsetting for you.’
‘Not really… well, it’s weird, but I’m starting to realise that in my life what’s weird is normal and what’s normal is weird.’
‘But that’s what normal is. It’s weird. There’s no such thing as normal. We tie ourselves in knots trying to be normal when we should just accept the weird.’
‘You’re weird,’ she said.
‘I know. Have been all my life.’
‘Mum, why did you marry Dad?’ she said. ‘Did it have anything to do with losing the baby?’
‘I liked him. I still do. He’s a nice person, a good person. And I admired him being in politics, even if I didn’t always share his point of view, because he was actually trying to effect change, to do something and I liked that… and…’
‘And what?’
‘He seemed so normal…’ I laughed at how like Rosie I sounded. I too used to want an idea of normal.
‘But now he’s weird, like the rest of us.’
‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘But it was a year after I’d had the miscarriage and I thought, that he was going to be good for me. And he was. Because then I had my second chance. I had you.’
She nodded.
‘I wish Rosaleen had been around when Jake… when Jake finished with me,’ she said, tears in her eyes now. ‘She might have helped me deal with it, you know? With her aplomb. In a way, and I don’t want to blame him, but that was what started it all off. I was kind of starting to panic at the end of last year in school, knowing that I was falling behind and all I could see was the whole of the following year looming ahead… but then when he told me he didn’t want to see me anymore, I kind of took it as a reason, an excuse, really, not to handle things, not to carry on, to sink into myself. Not to be…’ She searched for the word. My lovely girl. I had her hand in mine, gripping it, following her words. ‘Not to be aplomby.’ Tears fell down her face.
‘I’m sure that even Rosaleen wasn’t like that all the time. None of us are perfect, but let’s not beat ourselves up, okay? Just promise me you won’t give yourself a hard time, all right? Just be nice to yourself, say nice things to yourself. Please?’
She nodded. ‘That’s what Miss Byrne says.’
‘So you’ll do it? Promise me?’
‘Promise.’
‘Rosie, everything’s going to be okay, okay?’ I said, taking both her hands. ‘And I’m absolutely fine. We’ll all sort this out and I promise you I am not hurt or unhappy. Lucy is a good person and they are a good team. Better than your father and me.’
‘You’re not angry at Dad. And at Lucy?’
I shook my head. ‘No… not at all. Pleased, really. For him. And Lucy. I’m glad for them.’
‘Mum, that’s weird.’
‘Well, I’m weird.’ I smiled at her. ‘For the first time in my life I am embracing my inner weirdness. You see, the thing is I don’t mind. You are the one I am worried about here. But I think Dad might have found his soulmate in Lucy and that’s a good thing…’
‘I can’t imagine Dad having a soulmate,’ she said. ‘He’s not really the soulmatey type of person.’
‘Your parents still can have the capacity to surprise you,’ I laughed. ‘I know my mother is still surprising me.’
‘Mum, I was thinking. About Red.’
‘Red?’ Why was she bringing him into all this?
‘What did he say when it all happened? Was he upset?’
‘I didn’t tell him.’
‘What?’
I should have done, but I couldn’t. It meant… we didn’t see each other for all that time.’
‘And he still doesn’t know?’ Her eyes were wide open. She was learning far too much about the lives of grown-ups today.
‘No. I’m going to tell him. I think he deserves to know. He didn’t understand why I just stopped contact…’
‘And why did you?’
‘I didn’t know what to say… I suppose… I suppose I was depressed.’
She was silent for a moment and then she said, ‘I get it. That makes sense.’ She reached for my hand, her comforting me.
Both our phones rang.
‘We’ve got a signal!’ shouted Rosie, finally delighted about something. ‘The WIFI has materialised!’
It was Michael on her phone.