Best Love, Rosie. Nuala O'Faolain

finely modelled necks? Placido Domingo, that kind of man. Why couldn’t I have been the kind of woman Rilke fell for? All furs and a brilliant mind. With a castle. Those women didn’t have to look after their aunts. Rilke didn’t have to look after his aunt; as a matter of fact he refused to look after his mother. Rilke had it easy compared to people who have no choice but to look after their elderly relatives; a subject, by the way, on which in spite of it happening to nearly everyone, there is no literature. No writing, even, never mind literature.

      I’d come across a thing on the Internet, a list of resolutions that if you stuck to them would help control your depression. Now I printed them out and took them up to Min with a cup of tea and a slice of Reeny’s Spanish-style fruitcake. It was cosy in her bedroom with the new gas heating and the curtains closed against the winter night, and Bell surveying matters from her basket on the dressing-table and the transistor talking to itself on the pillow.

      I began the lesson. ‘OK. Number One. Spend my time building on my strengths rather than patching up my weaknesses.’

      ‘Fair enough,’ Min said after a pause. ‘But what weaknesses does the person who wrote it mean?’

      ‘Whatever ones you have,’ I said. ‘What ones do you have?’

      There was a longer pause.

      ‘She doesn’t mean, does she,’ Min said tentatively, ‘like having a weakness, say, for butter on my potatoes?’

      ‘No, I don’t think so. We’ll leave that one, will we, and try Number Two. Ask myself every day, “What do I need?” and then take a step to meet that need.’

      ‘That’s a great one!’ Min said enthusiastically. ‘Say I needed to bring Bell to the vet, I could ask you to ring him up and make an appointment!’

      ‘Is there something wrong with Bell?’

      ‘Not a thing – is there, Bella? Don’t hide under the bedclothes, Bella. Come up here where I can see you.’

      ‘The next one is Make a list of activities that are delightful and do one every week.’

      ‘No problem there,’ Min said. ‘I was thinking of going to Mass somewhere else than Kilbride church. I don’t like that oul’ Father Simms. That’s weekly.’

      ‘OK,’ I said cautiously. ‘That’s good. That’s action. Now, Number Four. Admit that I don’t know is what it says.’

      ‘That I don’t know what?’ Min said belligerently. ‘I do know.’

      ‘What do you know?’

      ‘I know lots of things. I left school the day I was fourteen.’

      ‘I’m aware of that, Min. You’ve told me that five hundred times.’

      ‘But that doesn’t mean that I don’t know things.’ She was growing aggrieved now.

      ‘Min!’ I said. ‘Who ever said you didn’t? You’re well able to do the hard crossword, for example, and you used to write me the greatest letters. Anyway, the last one is – Say “NO” to myself on occasion and to others on many more occasions.’

      ‘No,’ Min said.

      ‘No what?’

      ‘No to whatever eejit wrote those rules. No, they’re no bloody good. No, I’m not going to do any of them.’

      ‘That’s right!’ I danced around the bed. ‘Right on, Sister!’

      A bell to welcome the New Year began to ring. The first joyful binging and bonging came from Christchurch Cathedral, two or three miles away on its hill in the middle of the city, and then a wave of other bells gathered, rolling towards us from church to church down the Liffey and along the dark streets and across the canal and onto the roofs of our enclave of low brick terraces and little lanes. And suddenly all the ships in Dublin Bay on the other side of Kilbride blew their sirens to welcome midnight in competition with the bells. I threw the window open so that the room filled with a mad cacophony of hooting and pealing, and Min got ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on her radio and the two of us sang along and Bell began the New Year by stalking out the bedroom door in outrage.

      From: [email protected]

      To: [email protected]

      Sent: 11.25 a.m.

      Dear Markey,

      I got this address from your Christmas card from Seattle – I hope you don’t mind me using it. I’m contacting you from – guess where? Right. Same old house. I came back because Min had become very reclusive and she was drinking (but only a little bit at the moment, fingers crossed).

      Do you remember Colfer’s shop? Mr Colfer who took about half an hour to serve a person anything? Well Peg, his youngest, who’s a friend of mine and has been going out for ever with Reeny’s son Monty (do you remember Reeny? She was very friendly with your mam though she isn’t a bit religious) – anyhow, Peg gave me two books for Christmas – one by a priest I once went on a protest march with, and one by an American woman who used to be married to Seán Bán Breathnach who used to do the commentary on football matches in Irish. Books written to help you through life.

      Peg told me that both those writers are now millionaires, and that it’s because people think they’re Irish – well not exactly Irish but Celtic. (It seems people think the Irish fall out of bars and thump each other, whereas the Celts have more class).

      The question I want to ask you, Markey, is: Could I not write a book that would give advice to people about how to get through life?

      I am as Celtic as the next person. And I am an experienced writer – I attach my CV and you will see that over the years, in a variety of jobs, I have written every kind of promotional and educational and informational material. And I BADLY WANT work that I can do at home, where I can keep an eye on Min because sometimes I think she’s very depressed.

      I realise that Rare Medical Books is a book business, not a publisher, but you must know people in the American publishing world? Would it be possible for you to put me in touch with an agent who specialises in this kind of thing? I know this is a long shot but frankly, Markey, from what I’ve seen, a baby could do better than most of the people who write these books. Their strong point seems to be their perky, optimistic tone, but I believe I could imitate that.

      To give you an example:

       Rosie Barry’s Four-F Programme for the Middle Part of the Journey!

      Are you as rich in experience as you are still young at heart?

      And do you sometimes feel that neither the challenges nor the rewards of these vibrant years the world calls middle age have had the attention they deserve?

      The Four-F programme builds on your wisdom, your joy and the love for others that a life well-lived has taught you. Don’t let the years take you where you don’t want to go. Instead:

      Frolic like you always did!

      Fear nothing!

      Make every day a Fiesta.

      And don’t forget, but Forgive!

      Thank you in advance, Markey, for any help you can give. Don’t forget that if anyone in the self-help world would like to meet me to discuss this or any other idea, I can easily go to New York.

      I haven’t written to you since I sent you a card from Warsaw about Chopin a very long time ago, but I have thought about you and talked to you in my head many, many times.

      Rosie Barry

      2

      ‘Markey, what time is it in Seattle? Your message said I could call any time. Are you busy? Can you listen for a minute?’

      ‘Rosie, what’s wrong with your voice?’

      ‘Min is supposed to be asleep but she might come down. She thinks long distance is