We Are All Constellations by Amy Beashel

Author:Amy Beashel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dating;suicide;trauma;death;grief;LGBTQ+;kathleen glasgow;jennifer niven;social issues;women;friendship;family;self esteem;teen;feminist;lesbian;emotional trauma;relationships;consent;Holly Bourne
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2022-09-06T20:50:27+00:00

Twenty-Four

‘Iris!’ Bronagh’s voice matches the buzzy jollity of the hive of carol singers huddled outside the station toilets going full pelt on ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ like they’ve been hard-lining yule logs and rum balls since 7 a.m. ‘I’m so glad youse asked to meet up.’ She wraps me in a giant hug which, with that long grey furry coat she’s sporting, makes me feel like there’s a yeti swallowing me whole. ‘I still can’t get over how much youse look like Sarah. It’s your eyes, maybe.’ She studies me with such intensity, I don’t know where to look. ‘Or your mouth.’

Is that it? My eyes? My mouth? Or is there more of me that carries echoes of my mother. Not just my appearance, but something deeper, something in the way I riled Tala. How she was so sure I’d judge her in the same way she seems to think Know-All, Linchpin and Stickler are judgements on Noah, Rosa and Dad.

‘Mr Taylor’s a busybody,’ Mum said when the neighbouring farmer had come to ask if she was aware of the guidelines regarding lighting fires in your garden.

‘That woman is a jobsworth,’ she spat when the librarian insisted she couldn’t take out Wuthering Heights, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Rebecca until she’d returned and paid the fine for the ten books she already had on loan.

‘That teacher’s a supercilious twit,’ she mumbled as I climbed into the car after the head had swept her away for a ‘quiet word’, leaving me with her PA for yet another game of noughts and crosses. I was over it by then; we’d been playing since all the other kids were picked up and taken home from school over an hour earlier.

‘You like hot chocolate?’ Bronagh’s pleased when I nod that I do. ‘Will we go to Birdies then? Your mam always loved a hot chocolate with all the marshmallows and squirty cream.’

Maybe it’s the lack of space inside Bronagh’s car, but the missingness of Mum is so much fleshier here. Or perhaps it’s hearing about her. These little details creating a bigger picture, which in turn creates a bigger hole.

The details are why I came, though. Why I messaged Bronagh when Tala dropped me home after the bothy yesterday, and asked if she wouldn’t mind meeting up and answering some questions about Mum.

A few minutes later, we’re in the kind of cute independent coffee shop that only really exists in movies. The back wall is concealed with fully stacked bookshelves Tala would die for. Two wooden letter boards preside over the counter – one offers the menu, the other details the many ways in which Birdies wants to boost the mood of its local community. Their next effort, in three days’ time, is a singalong screening of Scrooge. The pièce de résistance is a giant birdcage in a corner by the window, where a parrot is perched on a swing, his beady eyes on the man in front of us who is ordering a flat white to go.

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