Birthday

I wrote a story called Silvia, and an American magazine called Exacting Clam was kind enough to publish it. I knew it would be published in the Winter edition many months ago and was looking forward to gifting it to my mother, either for her birthday or Christmas. Her birthday is today, but she never lived to read Silvia (or more likely, have it read to her). I was particularly keen to wait for publication, because one of the things my mum was proudest of, was working for Hearst Publications in New York in the sixties. And here was a story by me, printed in an American magazine, that's a thinly veiled report of a night in front of the TV with me and my mum. Oh, and I also drew the cover, which would have probably have impressed her more. 

She's called Silvia in the story, and is a petite red head. The narrator is tall and can drive a car - so the parallels between us aren't exact. But the meat of the story: the meal, the ongoing critique of cinema during the viewing, the three bottle evenings, are very recognisible. A couple of years ago, long before this fucking plague, I turned up at her house with a Tascam, hoping to record a series of interviews, to get the story of her life, and it turned out that we had very different ideas about what was important. My mother took a Genesis Five approach: she was all about the "begats". She could remember all the children that everyone in her (large) family had, and their children down through the generations. That was all she was interested in. I felt sorry not to have added to her tally of grandchildren. What I was interested in was stories: where she lived, where she went, who she knew, what was it like? She was in Manhattan in the sixties! Was it like "Mad Men"? Where did she go dancing? What did she eat? What was the city like? Was it a massive culture shock after leaving sleepy Ballintogher? She couldn't remember. She couldn't remember anything. Her head was too full of other people's babies to remember where she'd been and what she'd done. As cultural history the tapes are pretty useless. As a record of me bickering with my mother in a comfortable well worn rut, they are invaluable. I shall treasure them. But I'm not yet ready to listen to them again. Her ghostly voice, whispering. The breaths she no longer takes frozen in time. 

Silvia though, is very true. As a snapshot of a certain time in our lives, about who we were and how we got along, it is vivid. It's grim to have to write that in the past tense. I hope she would have liked it. She knew what she was like and she knew what I'm like. Perhaps, she wouldn't have recognised herself at all, people sometimes don't. 

I'm off on a pilgrimage to Sligo, where my mother grew up, and where I have been once before, on a family holiday that was a succession of smoky, country kitchens and pub car parks. It was only years later I found it was by the sea! Susan and I are also going to Northern Irish Lake Country - Enniskillen. Apparently it is going to rain and sleet for the next week. Forewarned is forearmed - I'll wear my coat.