The Mammy by Brendan O'Carroll

the door than Cathy began emptying her pockets and handbag of half-crowns, ten-shilling notes, and the odd pound note. Agnes went to her bedroom and took off her ’good’ dress and with a huge sigh of relief peeled off the roll-on that had seemed to be shrinking as the day wore on. When she returned to the kitchen Cathy was sitting at the table with her Confirmation money all sorted.
    ‘Well, how’d you do?’ Agnes asked her.
    ‘Sixteen pounds and twelve shillings,’ Cathy answered with awe in her voice.
    ‘My God, you lucky thing! When I made my Confirmation I got all of eight shillings, and I was delighted.’ The battle-cry of all parents.
    Cathy just sat and surveyed her money. All this money, more than she had ever seen. Agnes sat down at the table opposite her.
    ‘So, have you decided what you’re going to do with it all, love?’
    ‘Yeh,’ Cathy answered, pleased with herself.
    ‘So what’s it to be?’
    ‘Well, I thought, two shillings each for Dermo, Rory, Simon and Frankie. Half-a-crown for Marko. That’s ... eh ... ten-and-six right? Then one-and-six to buy Trevor a ball. That leaves sixteen pounds, and I’m keeping a pound for meself!’ The child was glowing with the chance of being Santa Claus.
    ‘That still leaves you fifteen pounds, love. Do you want me to save it for you?’ Agnes asked.
    ‘No, Mammy - that’s for you!’
    ‘For me?’ Agnes was taken aback. Fifteen pounds was three weeks’ profit from the stall.
    ‘Yeh! for you, Ma! To buy anything you want.’
    ‘Oh you’re very good, love, but I couldn’t!‘
    ‘Mammy, please take it. I want you to have it. Buy some Cliff Richard records with it!’
    Agnes laughed. ‘With that kinda money I could buy all his records. No, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with it - I’ll put a carpet on the floor! A nice bit of exminister, none of that tintain stuff, real exminister with underfelt and all. Wouldn’t that be nice?’
    ‘Lovely, Mammy. Can I go with you when you’re buying it?’
    ‘Not only can yeh come, you can pick it!’
    Cathy was ecstatic. ‘Great!’ she screeched, and ran around the table for a hug.
    ‘Shh!’ Agnes whispered, ‘you’ll wake the boys. Go on off to bed, and hang that suit up. I might have to pawn it!’ Cathy had started to walk away but turned around, shocked with the mention of the word ‘pawn’.
    ‘Only jokin’, love,‘ Agnes laughed. And so did Cathy as she floated into her bedroom.
    Agnes was struggling with the go-car down the steps, followed by Cathy holding Trevor. The ‘baby’ was huge for his age, but unlike all of her other children who had been walking everywhere by their third birthday, Trevor insisted on being either carried or pushed in the go-car. Trevor was also slow to speak. At three Mark was reciting the alphabet, Dermot was telling lies and Cathy could sing you any song. But not Trevor. It wasn’t that he was slow, he was just bone lazy. His vocabulary consisted of about thirty words. Agnes suspected that he knew a lot more, but just did not want to use them. His most common phrases were of course the ones you didn’t want him to use - things like ’Fuck off, ‘Oh shit!’ or ‘Ask me arse’ came out clear as day. He also had, for some reason, decided on obscure names for things and no matter how Agnes tried to teach him the proper names, he stuck steadfastly to his own choices. For instance, ’breakfast’ was ‘ragga, ragga’. This sounded nothing like breakfast but when Trevor said ‘ragga, ragga’ he got a cereal. His penis was ’moo moo‘! Agnes tried to get him to say ’willy‘, but no way would he change. At this moment in time Trevor was shouting ’Go day‘, which meant he knew he was going to be pushed around Dublin in his go-car.
    When Agnes reached the bottom of the stairs she took Trevor from Cathy and placed him in the go-car. She fixed the straps around him and then asked Cathy, ‘Where’s the rope?’ The rope was used along with the straps.