Seeing Red

By far the most embarrassing aspect of having a crippled mother was having to go shopping for special occasions with whoever she could find to take me.

My confirmation shoes were bought on a cringy expedition with a couple up the road who I was so awkward with, I took the first pair I tried on.

Similarly, for my school uniform going to secondary school, a cousin of my mother and her husband brought me to be kitted out. I died a thousand deaths as I was measured for everything from the gabardine to the running knicks. They treated me to tea in the cafe after, but I was beyond jealous that other girls were doing this with their mothers while I was making small talk with strangers.

When the time came for my first bra, I was dispatched with a different relative. A single lady, equally uncomfortable with the situation. She needn’t have worried, as a late bloomer I was familiar with the entire St Bernard Teen Bra range. I think there was a choice of two and I had been longing for the day when I would eventually own the one with the lace inset.

In each of these experiences I always felt like the injured party, such was my teenage self-centredness that I genuinely believed I was the one who was hard done by. All I wanted was that Mum would be magically cured and we could walk down Grafton Street together. I used to scream inside when others moaned about going shopping with their mothers, Mum was screaming inside too, had I been sensitive enough to realise.

It’s funny how people with disabilities can use the most inappropriate terms, but others must stick to the PC versions. Mum, robbed of many other pleasures, took satisfaction saying she was a cripple or an invalid, that was her favourite ‘I’m in-valid’. Rheumatoid Arthritis isn’t the life sentence it was then, but for her, a woman who was once a well-travelled sales rep, it eventually made her housebound and at the mercy of others to be her hands in the world.

They were big hands to fill, Mum was an amazing cook and despite not being able to chop or peel anymore, never let her standards slip. The Brother and I were apprentices in her kitchen. He was a better student than me and it amazes me still how he can whip up Yorkshire Puddings from memory. I paid more attention during the baking sessions and still feel her presence guiding me when I’m making scones. ‘You need a cool surface and a light touch’. I do everything she once told me, but they never turn out as well as they did when she was sitting in a chair beside me directing operations.

The number one, most embarrassing moment of randomer shopping came when I was doing Irish Dancing and entered into a Feis. These highly costumed events were the high days we lived for back then. Our dance school wore red costumes. I got mine from a small ad in the paper; I think a friend’s mother took me to get it. It was a magnificent red dress with a Celtic pattern embroidered into the panel of the centre pleat. The black velvet bolero, white lace collar and the cape secured by two Tara broaches. I can’t remember how I got the dancing shoes, but I’ll never forget the final part of my ensemble coming together.

We had to wear red knickers, so that when we were up on-stage high kicking our way through slip-jigs and two-hand-reels, our undergarments would match the lining of our dresses and not detract from the dance. Red knickers were hard to come by in the 80’s but I left if with Mum, knowing she wouldn’t let me down.

It was a Friday evening and we were having dinner when a knock came to the door. I answered it to find a lad I didn’t know, but recognised as a couple of years ahead of The Brother in school. He had a brown bag in his hands. ‘My mother sent me down with this for you’. I stood, suspended in fear, trying to read if he was just the messenger or if he knew what the bag contained. I thanked him and took the bag quickly. As he was turning by the gate he called out, ‘Good luck in the Feis’. I’ll kill her, I thought, I’ll bloody kill her.