. . . on laughing
PORTADOWN PLAYED BOHEMIANS in Dublin last week. I mention this because there is a faint chance this soccer fixture may have passed you by. I would have remained happily ignorant of the event myself were it not for my in-laws-in-waiting from Portadown, who are loyal fans of their team, coming down for the match.
My boyfriend’s mother, Queenie, heads up the five-strong posse, which includes her husband, John, and their neighbour, Harry. She comes in clutching essentials such as kitchen roll and a plastic bag of teabags she’s lifted from her own stash. (One time in the early days she visited my house only to find I had no teabags: she will never take that risk again.)
I have a white teapot which only comes out for these royal visits. When I hear the doorbell I pour boiling water, warming the pot the way Queenie showed me years ago. We didn’t do pots of tea in our house growing up, or if we did I don’t remember them. It was always coffee, pots of filter coffee dripping slow into the glass jar that sat on the warmer. Now when I head North I bring my own coffee beans, grinder and plunger. (One time in the early days I visited Queenie’s house only to find I had to drink instant coffee: I will never take that risk again.)
The choreography of these visits is now well established. The groceries are decanted from bags, a sort of buffet lunch is set out on the table, all the finest Portadown fare. There are always slices of the kind of ham that evokes childhood memories and items I’d never pick off a supermarket shelf, like crinkle-cut beetroot from a jar. I pour tea for everyone as though I do this all the time.
“Put that back in the pot for a wee bit, that’s just heated up water,” Queenie, who knows about tea, tells me. I know nothing about tea except that I don’t like it, so I obey.
It used to annoy me the way no sooner had we finished eating, Queenie would start clearing up. That kind of behaviour is not usually tolerated in my house. I fought her for a while, demanding that as a guest in my home she let me do the dishes in my own time. She’d pretend to acquiesce then do it anyway, the air thick with my irritation, her obstinance and the sound of clattering dishes. So now I just let her away. I even join in. Sometimes I catch myself actually enjoying this vintage tableau. The menfolk up in the sitting room watching football on TV, the womenfolk down in the kitchen doing dishes.
After a while the menfolk head off to the match. I go up to put the children to bed. Queenie takes her horizontal position on the sofa, blanket across her knees, pillow at her head. When I come down we talk about Winning Streak. It’s one of Queenie’s life ambitions that someone belonging to her will appear on Winning Streak. She loves everything about that programme but especially the part where you don’t have to answer any questions. She loves how it’s “spin this”, “guess that”, “pick a number”.
I can't stand Winning Streak.
What about Mrs Brown's Boys? she asks, because she already knows the answer. I make a face. She has already bought tickets for the show at Christmas. I tell her I met Brendan O'Carroll recently and asked him what he would say to people who don't find the show funny. "F**k them," he said. Queenie loves this.
The menfolk return from the match. The fire is roaring in the sittingroom and spirits are high, even though Bohemians beat them 2-1. Harry, who has prostate cancer, sits down for a cup of tea and a bun. This week he’ll start a seven-and-a-half-week programme of radiotherapy, travelling to Belfast five days a week to receive treatment. He was diagnosed with the cancer after a family member nagged him to go for a routine check up.
It must have been a shock, I suggest, thinking you were healthy and then suddenly being told otherwise. “You know,” says Harry. “I think it’s worse for the people who have to tell you than it is for the person hearing it.”
He's been self-medicating lately. He read a book that recommends laughter as therapy. "I discovered this American sitcom that really makes me laugh," says this quiet, thoughtful man. It turns out he has watched more than 200 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond.He used to start each day with what he calls a "double dose" of the sitcom. He'd sit there and laugh and laugh and laugh. His blood results, which the hospital had told him they were worried about, normalised. The hospital suggested it was because of the injections they'd been giving him, but Harry knows it's because of Everybody Loves Raymond, and he giggles on the sofa even thinking about it.
“Tell John what Mrs Brown said to you,” Queenie orders me. I tell him. Her husband cracks up. He loves Mrs Brown’s Boys the way Harry loves Everybody Loves Raymond. It makes him laugh and laugh and laugh.
Tea drank, buns eaten, it’s time to go back up the road to Portadown. Drive safely, we tell them as the chill of the night whips through the hall. Keep laughing everybody.
In other news
Originally a women-only event, the first mixed Dip in the Nip takes place at 8.30am on Sunday, February 26th on the beach in Spiddal, Co Galway. While you shiver you can think of all the dosh you’re raising for the children’s charity Hand In Hand. Call 086-1733019 or register on dipinthenip.eu