The Empty Nest
What do you do when the chicks fly away from the nest? What if there were never any chicks living there to begin with? Iseult O'Brien has written a story about people who find themselves living alone. She has illustrated it with her own photographs of birds. Enjoy the read.
Anna Humphreys opens her laptop and posts the following status on her timeline.
Anna Humphreys I have 352 friends on Facebook but which one of them is going to help me move house on Saturday week?
Before she logs out, she notices that Peter Barnes has changed his profile picture. He used to be represented by a pair of scuffed Doc Martins. Today he wishes to be identified as a cup of coffee sitting on a window sill on a sunny day. Anna does not approve of this sort of thing, wishing that people would use pictures of their faces to identify themselves on Facebook. Whether it’s the ubiquitous blurry phone camera shot or the expert flattering one taken from above, Anna prefers to see the image of the person she is talking to. Everyone does. She slaps down the lid and goes out into the garden to smoke a cigarette even though she’s a doctor.
It is starting to get bright and she can hear the wing beats of the birds flying overhead. This would be the moment to practice mindfulness but it’s just not the day. Holly will be here soon to open up the surgery. In six days time they move to the new practice.
Fortunately, Anna does not feel too attached to the house or the garden or anything in it. There are people who become obsessive about family heirlooms and tokens of love and even magnolia trees, but she’s not one of them. She doesn’t keep letters. Hell, she doesn’t keep emails.
A Black-headed gull flying overhead seems to laugh. The Great Black-backed gull responds with a burrburrburr. It is a bit chilly out.
Peter Barnes is having a cup of coffee and several croissants at an outside table in a café on Rue de Seine in Paris. He is also keeping an eye on his phone. Peter was Anna’s boyfriend in college for a month in first year – but after they broke up they remained friends. The relationship had not been serious but Anna had naively believed that the friendship was forever. It wasn’t. They used to make each other laugh. Sense of humour is something women always say they look for in a man but anecdotal evidence suggests that men are more attracted to breasts and nice bottoms.
It was Anna who looked for Peter on Facebook. Peter doesn’t send out friendship requests. Not ever. He despises false chumminess and networking. Well, put it this way, if Philip Roth had a Facebook page he might send him a request, but sending one to Anna Humphreys was not on his list of priorities even though he once told her that her shoulders were like the pale sandstone hills of Petra. When her request appeared on his timeline some years ago he hesitated to confirm it. And although he eventually did, he has made it a point to be unfriendly to her ever since. Her suburban dullness irritates him more than other people’s.
He scrolls through his News Feed. She has posted again. Her first one of the day was a gem. Why would she follow it up with another so quickly? And she’s using emoticons. The sight of them makes him feel quite sick.
Anna Humphreys My two chicks have flown the coop.
And under that two separate comments pop up almost immediately:
Anna Humphreys Yes Australia
Anna Humphreys Yes both of them. Long story.
Peter cannot believe he is associated with someone who posts smiley faces and refers to her children as chicks. He has never liked any of Anna’s posts, although he has come close to it a couple of times. But in each instance he held firm only permitting himself a well-timed quip or two.
Should he volunteer to help her move house? She would be so surprised to see him that it might be worth it on that count alone. And he would almost do it if it were guaranteed that he would not have to interact with her family and friends. Even if someone put a gun to his head, which would be unlikely to happen on Trees Road in Mount Merrion, he wouldn’t have anything to say to those people. He scrolls up and sees that a good number of those familiar dreary names are offering their services to Anna for the move. So there’s no need to go after all.
Anna sees patients from 8.30 onwards. At 11.00 she tells Holly she needs to ask Declan something and runs upstairs to check her Facebook account. Declan hasn’t been around for days and he’s probably never coming back unless he wants the cds. Holly must have noticed that his car has not been parked outside for a week. But as she too would sell her own mother for five unbroken minutes on Facebook, she may not have spotted anything out of the ordinary.
Anna lights up and logs on. It doesn’t matter if she smokes in the kitchen anymore although she feels funny about doing it. The smoke is probably wafting downstairs to the waiting room and ruining her reputation. Ooh look at all those cheery little red message signals at the top of the page. They are like sails bobbing on a royal blue sea in a children’s book– how wonderful. It looks like she’s going to get a decent turnout for the move. She also has the fun of reading all the comments, some of which are very funny. Likes and comments have gathered around her empty nest status too:
Marguerite Hagan Poor Anna. You are in my thoughts
Aoibheann Finnegan Fingers crossed that it won't be for long
Philomena Montague-Carroll It’s because of the bloody recession. I can’t tell you what I’d like to do with those sly bollixes in government
And the more touchy feely:
Anastasia Cooper This is your chance to go on a journey. At last you can spread your wings and soar.
There now seem to be 12 or so people involved in the discussion and none of them have liked Anna’s status. You can’t like bad news.
Charlotte Ramsay You were always so tough at school. I know that you will get through this.
Charlotte had befriended Anna on the basis that they were at Mount Anville together. Anna still hasn’t broken it to Charlotte that she didn’t go to Mount Anville. As it happens, she only confirmed Charlotte’s friendship request because she thought that she was a friend of her sister Brigid - the friend with the limp who designed something to do with the space shuttle.
Anna thanks everyone.
Anna Humphreys I know I’m not the only one going through this. Thank you for your words of encouragement. I’ll get used to my empty nest I suppose.
Dr. Margaret O Thompson There’s always Skype
Several interlocutors press like.
Mary Sidebottom And don’t forget Ryan Air. I suggest packing a few tee shirts and knickers and wearing the same trousers two days in a row
Mary may not actually understand where Australia is.
All of this is followed by a heated exchange about baggage handling.
Anna smiles. She roots in her handbag for a Fisherman’s Friend, pops it in her mouth, applies more lipstick and before she goes back downstairs has a quick look on the My Second Spring website. She needs to understand how mindfulness works. If it could get her through afternoon surgery, she’d sign up to it now. But she hears someone cough in the waiting room and closes her computer. Time to go back downstairs to discuss earaches, colds, weak bladders and varicose veins with real live people who don’t get cross about the Americanization of Irish culture and the destruction of Dublin and who send you links to funny youtube clips.
It’s one o’clock and Peter is having lunch with a Ukrainian model from this morning’s photo shoot. She is so tall that her feet are pressing against his ankles because there is barely enough room for her legs under the table. Peter takes off his glasses to read the menu. He had already offered it to Ekaterina with an “I suppose you wont be needing this”. She giggles politely although well used to the joke. Normally he would have started flirting at this point but he just can’t do it anymore. He doesn’t find her remotely attractive – and not because she’s not beautiful. Ekaterina is ravishing. Peter doesn’t lust after her because she is simply too young and too tall. Now that he is 50, looking at Ekaterina is like looking at an extraterrestrial. He does not understand anything she says. They do not share a sense of humour. At best, they can manage only a stilted conversation. He asks her about the history of Kiev and she looks at him blankly. “I am not a historian”, she says. Fortunately, she is sweet natured and talkative. This allows him attack his lunch with unseemly interest.
He cannot resist dessert so he doesn’t: Une boule nacrée à la Granny Smith, crème glacée au poivre de Séchouan is duly ordered and dealt with briskly. While he eats, Ekaterina describes some of the high jinks she and the Russian girls have got up to in Montparnasse where they are staying in a flat belonging to the model agency. He laughs along happily pretending he is listening and wondering how soon they can leave. Finally Ekaterina gets up to go to the ladies. “Be quick Blondie” he says, “They are waiting for us”. He takes advantage of her absence to peek at Facebook and read the comments under Anna’s empty nest status.
He could say something to Anna about her children emigrating – they are probably Ekaterina’s age although undoubtedly less tall. He might say "Poor You!" but then he’d be no better than the others, and worse still, would be notified of all the other inane messages of sympathy sent in by the eejits Anna calls her friends, half of whom appear to be the type of women who call themselves “mums” and are obsessed by drink. The rest are just lunatics and attention seekers. He would not be able to tolerate it if one of them addressed him.
Ekaterina is back and winding a huge grey cashmere scarf around herself as she gets ready to brave the autumn air. She shivers. Little does she know – but he is planning to put her in an evening dress and float her on one of the ponds in the Bois de Boulogne. “Are you ready Goldilocks? I don’t think you had any of your soup. Won’t you be hungry this afternoon?” She looks down at him with a smile and says “I am Goldilocks and you are a bear who ate his porridge all up” and with that she places her long fingers on his unruly stomach and rubs it. He feels like kneecapping her.
Some time later Peter is still mulling over Anna’s status as his assistant helps him set up for the shoot and he twiddles with his lenses. Anna’s nest is not empty. There is plenty of photographic evidence of her husband’s existence. He looks like a gormless fool in his pastel coloured jumper and golfing shoes. His haircut screams accountant. But Anna appears to adore him. She posts photographs of the two of them drinking champagne and mugging for the camera, sitting on a balcony in a foreign county or simply indulging in a bit of horse play in their back garden. You’d think they’d be happy to have the house to themselves, thinks Peter.
He gets some really great shots of Ekaterina and the two other girls hanging out of autumnal trees and lying in the water and covered in moss and pebbles. He wraps it up pretty quickly though, thanking the girls and the crew and the people from the model agency and the magazine. The temperature has dropped and he doesn’t want the girls to get pneumonia.
Anna doesn’t know what an empty nest is – he thinks as he plugs his headphones in and heads off towards his.
At 7.10 Anna sees her last patient out, takes off her white coat and throws it in the washing machine with the rest of the whites. Holly is long gone. Anna puts on the answering machine and goes upstairs. The house is empty. She pours herself a glass of wine and logs on to Facebook. The conversation about the empty nest continued during the day and is still going on.
Dr. Margaret O Thompson In her book I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron claims that the empty nest is underrated. And Nora tends to be right about everything except for grammar.
That comment raises a visible laugh or two. Anna presses like and goes off to have a shower.
As she puts on her pyjamas, she wonders whether she should try out Breaking Bad again. It’s meant to be so good, and it probably is, but it’s just not enjoyable. There are only so many rolling fluorescent skies she can admire and she’s just not in the mood to listen to conversations between men with face tattoos and garish clothes punctuating each sentence with yo or bitch. It may not glamourize drugs but it is definitely designed to make you root for the chemistry teacher who never once contemplates the ethics of what he is doing. Crystal meth makes people rape their children. He would know that. She decides to read the latest Marian Keyes on her ipad instead.
She is a bit in love with one of the characters in the novel, the one with the beautiful hands. Peter Barnes always had lovely hands. He was far too good looking for her back in college and too clever and arty. But at least he was fun. Now he is far too delighted with himself. She used to like his posts on Facebook but then she stopped when she realized that she didn’t understand them. Come to think of it – he has never liked anything she has written. Bastard.
At midnight she feels a little peckish. There’s not much to eat in the house – she makes toast with the last two pieces of bread and eats it dry in while checking her email. Fortunately, James and Fiona let her know that they have arrived safely in Sydney. She tells them she misses them and suggests they talk tomorrow. Anna presses send and immediately logs back onto Facebook, without giving herself time to think.
Brilliant. One new comment.
Mungo Smith Your children leaving home signals that you are closer to death. But look on the bright side, your house no longer resembles a taxi rank/soup kitchen with round the clock screaming matches reminiscent of the Jerry Springer Show. Of course, you may occasionally feel wistful about life with your children but you must keep your mind off it. "Denial is not just a river in Egypt" as Mark Twain said.
Anna pours herself another glass of wine and writes a long comment (even though everyone knows that long comments are only ever written by nutters):
Anna Humphreys Denial involves too much effort. But Mungo, your comment about Jerry Springer has inspired me. My new strategy is to think about how annoying my children could be when they lived here; e.g. Why am I longing for the presence of someone in my house whose inclination is to lie in bed all morning only to go downstairs to the living room, draw the curtains and play Call of Duty till dinner time? Am I really pining for his large silent friends who have bottomless pits for stomachs and expressionless faces and who never make eye contact with me? Over the last few years I have felt like I was living with the cast of Goodfellas. So why am I complaining?
Mungo presses like
Peter is sitting in his apartment reading this – a large tumbler of whiskey on the table beside him. His apartment is rather spectacular with a 1980s vibe. As Maev put it as he was showing her around first: “Where did I put my Joseph Pour La Maison knickers?”. Maev was his last real girlfriend. When he made it clear he didn’t want her to move in, she put her toothbrush back in her Birkin tote bag and left. Since then she has had a baby with a French film director and is reportedly happy. Maev doesn’t have a Facebook account so he can’t check.
He has just watched Breaking Bad and has been tweeting about it. He actually managed to have a twitter exchange with a Hollywood Name about the inscrutable Mexican hit men in the shiny suits. That made him smile. He gets up and puts on some music and dances around the room for a while.
Tired from dancing he walks out on to the balcony and rolls a joint and lets his imagination take flight. He takes a drag and creates the story of a chance meeting with Anna in his mind. He doesn’t want to run in to her in Dublin but plans that they will meet by chance in Paris. She could be doing a spot of tourism on her own, having left Whatshisname behind in Dublin. He, Peter, would be walking through the Luxembourg gardens when he spots a tiny slender dark woman with a camera on her shoulder walking towards the little ponies. He will recognize her by her ungainly walk. Her ungainly but adorable walk. She will turn around and smile when she sees him and they will hug.
She will say: “We have been out of touch for so long. It’s such a pity”.
He will say:
“Of course I read everything you write on Facebook and I look forward to it Anna”
She will say:
“I don’t believe you. Prove it to me”.
He will say
“Remember when you used to be driven insane by the state of your daughter’s room. Every day you nagged her to tidy up. Every day she promised she would, but didn’t. Remember when that ghastly friend of yours Jacinta Mulligan pointed out that Madonna confiscates absolutely everything left lying on her children’s bedroom floors.
You said “Good for Madge. I’ll give that a whirl”. You finished that thought with one of those smileys in sunglasses. And Jacinta probably said ‘You go girl’! We learned the following day that while your daughter was at school, you picked all the clothes up off her floor and hung them in her wardrobe. You admitted that you lacked Madonna’s self-discipline, and hadn’t confiscated so much as a cigarette lighter. Moreoever, I believe you hauled the offender’s laundry basket downstairs, half knowing that many of the clothes in it had not been worn but just stashed there in response to nagging. You got a fair few LOLs for that description and a ROFL from Mungo Smith whose profile picture is of the Stasi policeman in The Lives of Others. He is a househusband, isn’t he? No man can have so much to say about rogue socks
She’d be amazed that he had paid such close attention and would admit that she read his posts too and absolutely adored them. They would keep walking until before they know it they find themselves standing in front of the Eglise St Sulpice. And maybe he will admit to her that he thinks about her often and she will respond that she thinks about him every waking minute of every day and dreams about him too.
Nice idea. Peter gets up and walks inside to refill his glass. Automatically he checks his phone. Oh Dear. She’s writing long posts. That is never a good idea.
Anna Humphreys The children used to be so difficult about eating. When James was tiny he ate everything I put in front of him. But by age four, his palate suddenly became more sensitive. If I dared put anything green on his plate, he would scream like the young boy in the Omen when passing a church. And then to keep things interesting, his taste became unpredictable. Fiona loved Shepherd’s Pie but if I had the audacity to serve it to James he would make getting sick noises. That is – until he turned 15 picked up a guitar and read Keith Richard’s memoir Life. Suddenly, Shepherd’s Pie and Bangers and Mash were de rigueur and he was even toying with the idea of Toad in the Hole. Meanwhile Fiona had become a vegetarian. You know the type – the ones who don’t actually eat vegetables.
Nobody is responding. It’s late. They are in bed. It is not clear what she is doing. He hopes she deletes it all before she goes to bed. He ought to send her an inbox message advising her to do so. He won’t though.
Peter remembers when Ann posted a photo album called Mealtimes with the Family. Fiona and James unfriended her pretty promptly after that and even Whatshisname got a bit shirty when he got wind of the photograph of him shoveling peas into his wide gaping mouth. How does Peter know all this? Well because Anna tells her Facebook friends everything. Absolutely bloody everything.
Good God now she is reminiscing fondly about the time the whole family piled into the car with the regulation French exchange and drove to Schull and there wasn’t a peep out of anyone until they stopped for lunch at the Cashel Palace Hotel. She reshares the photograph of this time. It’s a very dark picture of unidentifiable people possibly eating something or maybe even playing chess. It got 8 likes and 15 comments in its day and will probably rack up a few more tomorrow now that it has regained a prominent position on the News Feed.
Anna Humphreys Peace reigned for a while that day but only because they were occupied with gameboys. I remember that an argument erupted about leg overlap on the Clonakilty Bypass with one individual effing and blinding and another giving out a blood-curdling scream that nearly made me crash the car into a bollard.
Not waiting for a response she posts a new comment:
Anna Humphreys I don’t miss those Friday nights when I couldn’t drink because I was designated driver collecting a scowling Fiona at the embarrassingly early hour of 2.00 in the morning. Then I would be up at dawn and putting an anorak over my pyjamas to drive James to a football match in Skerries. And I’d get an earful the whole way there because I’d forgotten to wash his match socks and was unaware that I was in charge of providing cut up oranges to the two teams and expected to clean the dressing room during the game.
I have news for Gwyneth Paltrow. You can marry a rock star and spend half your life on juice fasts and in the gym and wear little backless dresses and sado-masochistic shoes but the minute you give birth you become the Old Dear and nothing will change that – not even calling said child after a piece of fruit. I doubt that Jay Z’s daughter will find him any more relevant than Val Doonican. Do you really think Kate Moss’s daughter finds it cool when her mother appears at the school gates in leather jeggings and ankle boots with sleep in her eyes and a fag hanging out of her mouth? And this is the way it should be. Children should disapprove of their parents – just a little bit.
Fortunately for Anna, James and Fiona really disapprove of her, thinks Peter. He’s tired now but afraid to miss anything. He has never had the guts to make a fool of himself knowingly. He kind of admires that in Anna but it also makes him shudder.
At three o’clock in the morning she changes her profile picture. Thank God. He won’t miss the one of herself and Whatshisname with their arms draped around each other looking at an exceptionally vulgar sunset. Now she is simply seen all alone with a half smile on her face and wearing a red dress. She is still pretty. Her hair is still thick and dark. She probably dyes it now but he wouldn’t hold that against her. He'd love to be able to dye his own. Maybe he should change his profile picture. He resolves to exchange the coffee cup for a picture of The Scream by Edvard Munch.
When Peter checks her page the following afternoon, he is relieved to see that Anna hasn’t posted anything new. But he sees she has 85 likes and 17 comments under her new profile picture and several of the comments are from her children. They seem to have refriended her.
It’s not a good photograph. The electric light behind her is distracting and the shape of her forehead is distorted like in all selfies. But you’ve got to understand that those 85 people including her children do not like the photo, they like her.
Peter also likes her. In fact, he loves her. But for now he’s just going to press like.
Also by Iseult O'Brien
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