Part One Hundred and Twenty Four
"Do we really have to go to Grandma's?" Niamh pleadingly caught Roisin's attention. "We love her but………."
"What's wrong my, ba__, I mean children," As Roisin recovered herself in time, old habits dying hard.
"It's just that we really miss you and Cassie while we're away and her house isn't so comfortable. She makes us get up early on a weekend only because she wants to," Michael weighed in, in a positive whinging tone.
"She only wants you to come over because she loves you and when both of us were away, she never got to see either of you…"
"It could be worse, kids, you could be going to Aiden's mother," Called out Cassie.
"Yeucch," They both called out, their faces twisted in disgust. Roisin's mother was traditional at heart but had come to accept Cassie remarkably well. She couldn't really understand this same sex parenting, as this was not the way anyone she knew behaved in Ireland many years ago. She had held judgement until she visited her daughter and, seeing Cassie being such a capable and loving parent, accepted Cassie for who she was. What also helped was that she had never got on with Aiden's dogmatic, fundamentalist approach to the family and still less liked Aiden's mother especially when she had monopolised the children while Roisin was inside prison. On the infrequent phone calls that she had received from the children, they were clearly unhappy being brought up in a harsh, unfeeling atmosphere. The combination of that had shifted Roisin's mother to becoming more open minded, less sympathetic to the values, which she had been taught.
"All right, we'll go," They grudgingly said.
Cassie and Roisin both drew an inward sigh of relief that they had been able to mediate between the two generations and made everyone happy.
Just then, the phone rang and Niamh picked up the phone being the nearest.
"Yes, Grandma, I'll pass the phone to Mummy," She said with an exaggerated display of good manners, which could only mean one thing.
"I want to see my grandchildren and so does Aiden," Came the peremptory tone of that voice which Roisin had hated so much when she was in prison and was helpless on the inside of the prison walls to look after them or have any say in how they should be brought up. That memory made her all the more determined that she and Cassie should never be in a similar situation.
"Mrs Connor," and Roisin clutched the phone fiercely in her hand. "I'm not against either you or Aiden seeing the children so long as they come back home and aren't upset by the way you treat them. That has happened before on a number of occasions. This weekend, it is quite impossible as my mother has asked them to stay for the weekend. The arrangement has already been made and we're not prepared, Cassie and I," And here Roisin caught Cassie's expression, "to put my mother off when she has equal rights with you and where they enjoy themselves."
Michael and Niamh had caught the drift of the conversation and both clung to Cassie and Roisin in mute approval.
"What does Cassie have to do with the children?" Roisin replied in raised tones. "Because she's my partner and the children look to her as their parent far more than they ever did to their blood parent, your son. We've gone through this matter over and over again and there's an end to it."
On that note, Roisin put the phone down on that female version of Dr Ian Paisley, the type of person who made her blood boil when she was growing up in Ireland. She knew no better when she was young and all she could offer then was an inarticulate resentment mixed with a sense of Catholic guilt which had been deep rooted in her right up till the stressful period in her time at Larkhall when Cassie, that most irreverent of women, had lovingly made her see that there were alternatives to guilt and she could go out and live that alternative.
"We'll stop moaning about grandma," Michael and Niamh chorused. To them now, there was only one grandma in their lives. The other was some sort of ogre who seemed to get some sort of pleasure in being horrible to them. It still amazed Cassie and Roisin how much Aiden and his mother had dropped out of their children's world and how secure Cassie was in the centre of their world.
It still left them with that 'all ready to be dressed up and nowhere to go' at the back of their minds, as they performed the daily family rituals that made the day fit around them. On other occasions, they both felt like spare parts except that they could be more unrestrained in their lovemaking. It was the rest of the time unless they came up with the idea of heading for the pleasure garden of decadent dreams over at Yvonne's house. Since Fenner was killed, they were more reluctant to go round.
After the children were tucked up in bed for one last time, their bags were ready packed complete with the assortment of Niamh's favourite dolls, all of whom just had to be packed and the sort of games that Roisin's mother would tolerate that weren't too noisy and disruptive.
"What will we do, Roash?" Roisin asked. "Go out clubbing?"
Cassie shook her head doubtfully. It wasn't what she really wanted but she didn't know what she did want.
Just then the phone rang.
"That better not be Aiden's mother wanting another argument," Came Roisin's tight-lipped response to the harsh jangle of the phone.
"Hi, it's Lauren," Came the quiet and rather hesitant voice and thrice blessed familiar tones.
"Lauren, how lovely to hear your voice," Roisin exclaimed in jubilant tones.
"You know what we nearly did last Saturday," Lauren's tentative voice started off and stopped.
"How could we forget? And Lauren, we quite understand how you feel," Roisin's warm tones reassured the uncharacteristically nervous, tongue tied woman. Cassie's sharp ears picked up on the train of conversation and her face was split from ear to ear with a wicked grin.
"Felt," Lauren said briefly. "I've been thinking and if the time came for the three of us to be alone together again, I know I would feel differently only I know that there aren't many times when the kids are away. I don't want to get in the……"
"Why don't you come over tomorrow night. By sheer chance, the kids will be over at my mothers. The timing couldn't be better."
She had smoked cigarette after cigarette that afternoon and had taken trigger for a walk twice round the block. He naturally lapped it all up, as his philosophy was the more attention he received from humans, the better and this day was exceptional. To be extra specially good, he took the lead and dropped it in the special place for the lead.
"You ought to go out more, Lauren," Yvonne's voice called out. The atmosphere was claustrophobic and Lauren was doing no good as she was, fretting for no good purpose.
That decided it. There was nothing to be lost by phoning Cassie and Roisin, so she reasoned, there was nothing lost by phoning.
"That will be great, Roash. I'll be specially looking forward to coming over.
Lauren felt a moment of total shock that swept through her system with a flood of libido and anticipation and a huge feeling of satisfaction that she had done the right thing.
"Don't worry, Lauren. We certainly will," Cassie's seductive tones with an audible grin in her voice gave Lauren all the final reassurance that she needed.
"If Aiden could see me now, and especially tomorrow night," Roisin laughed, marvelling at what her ears were telling her and how much she had changed for the better in her life.
"I know that Aiden is a total nobbing idiot but I didn't think he was a peeping Tom. We won't need any bloody spectators tomorrow night."
Roisin fell about laughing in a totally unrestrained way which brought back the moment when she had first been attracted to Roisin. Her laugh that day was only a restrained hint of what she had come to love about Roisin.
Three women went to bed that night with the promise of the next night of future pleasures. It had taken only a few phone calls to change their lives.
"Do we really have to go to Grandma's?" Niamh pleadingly caught Roisin's attention. "We love her but………."
"What's wrong my, ba__, I mean children," As Roisin recovered herself in time, old habits dying hard.
"It's just that we really miss you and Cassie while we're away and her house isn't so comfortable. She makes us get up early on a weekend only because she wants to," Michael weighed in, in a positive whinging tone.
"She only wants you to come over because she loves you and when both of us were away, she never got to see either of you…"
"It could be worse, kids, you could be going to Aiden's mother," Called out Cassie.
"Yeucch," They both called out, their faces twisted in disgust. Roisin's mother was traditional at heart but had come to accept Cassie remarkably well. She couldn't really understand this same sex parenting, as this was not the way anyone she knew behaved in Ireland many years ago. She had held judgement until she visited her daughter and, seeing Cassie being such a capable and loving parent, accepted Cassie for who she was. What also helped was that she had never got on with Aiden's dogmatic, fundamentalist approach to the family and still less liked Aiden's mother especially when she had monopolised the children while Roisin was inside prison. On the infrequent phone calls that she had received from the children, they were clearly unhappy being brought up in a harsh, unfeeling atmosphere. The combination of that had shifted Roisin's mother to becoming more open minded, less sympathetic to the values, which she had been taught.
"All right, we'll go," They grudgingly said.
Cassie and Roisin both drew an inward sigh of relief that they had been able to mediate between the two generations and made everyone happy.
Just then, the phone rang and Niamh picked up the phone being the nearest.
"Yes, Grandma, I'll pass the phone to Mummy," She said with an exaggerated display of good manners, which could only mean one thing.
"I want to see my grandchildren and so does Aiden," Came the peremptory tone of that voice which Roisin had hated so much when she was in prison and was helpless on the inside of the prison walls to look after them or have any say in how they should be brought up. That memory made her all the more determined that she and Cassie should never be in a similar situation.
"Mrs Connor," and Roisin clutched the phone fiercely in her hand. "I'm not against either you or Aiden seeing the children so long as they come back home and aren't upset by the way you treat them. That has happened before on a number of occasions. This weekend, it is quite impossible as my mother has asked them to stay for the weekend. The arrangement has already been made and we're not prepared, Cassie and I," And here Roisin caught Cassie's expression, "to put my mother off when she has equal rights with you and where they enjoy themselves."
Michael and Niamh had caught the drift of the conversation and both clung to Cassie and Roisin in mute approval.
"What does Cassie have to do with the children?" Roisin replied in raised tones. "Because she's my partner and the children look to her as their parent far more than they ever did to their blood parent, your son. We've gone through this matter over and over again and there's an end to it."
On that note, Roisin put the phone down on that female version of Dr Ian Paisley, the type of person who made her blood boil when she was growing up in Ireland. She knew no better when she was young and all she could offer then was an inarticulate resentment mixed with a sense of Catholic guilt which had been deep rooted in her right up till the stressful period in her time at Larkhall when Cassie, that most irreverent of women, had lovingly made her see that there were alternatives to guilt and she could go out and live that alternative.
"We'll stop moaning about grandma," Michael and Niamh chorused. To them now, there was only one grandma in their lives. The other was some sort of ogre who seemed to get some sort of pleasure in being horrible to them. It still amazed Cassie and Roisin how much Aiden and his mother had dropped out of their children's world and how secure Cassie was in the centre of their world.
It still left them with that 'all ready to be dressed up and nowhere to go' at the back of their minds, as they performed the daily family rituals that made the day fit around them. On other occasions, they both felt like spare parts except that they could be more unrestrained in their lovemaking. It was the rest of the time unless they came up with the idea of heading for the pleasure garden of decadent dreams over at Yvonne's house. Since Fenner was killed, they were more reluctant to go round.
After the children were tucked up in bed for one last time, their bags were ready packed complete with the assortment of Niamh's favourite dolls, all of whom just had to be packed and the sort of games that Roisin's mother would tolerate that weren't too noisy and disruptive.
"What will we do, Roash?" Roisin asked. "Go out clubbing?"
Cassie shook her head doubtfully. It wasn't what she really wanted but she didn't know what she did want.
Just then the phone rang.
"That better not be Aiden's mother wanting another argument," Came Roisin's tight-lipped response to the harsh jangle of the phone.
"Hi, it's Lauren," Came the quiet and rather hesitant voice and thrice blessed familiar tones.
"Lauren, how lovely to hear your voice," Roisin exclaimed in jubilant tones.
"You know what we nearly did last Saturday," Lauren's tentative voice started off and stopped.
"How could we forget? And Lauren, we quite understand how you feel," Roisin's warm tones reassured the uncharacteristically nervous, tongue tied woman. Cassie's sharp ears picked up on the train of conversation and her face was split from ear to ear with a wicked grin.
"Felt," Lauren said briefly. "I've been thinking and if the time came for the three of us to be alone together again, I know I would feel differently only I know that there aren't many times when the kids are away. I don't want to get in the……"
"Why don't you come over tomorrow night. By sheer chance, the kids will be over at my mothers. The timing couldn't be better."
She had smoked cigarette after cigarette that afternoon and had taken trigger for a walk twice round the block. He naturally lapped it all up, as his philosophy was the more attention he received from humans, the better and this day was exceptional. To be extra specially good, he took the lead and dropped it in the special place for the lead.
"You ought to go out more, Lauren," Yvonne's voice called out. The atmosphere was claustrophobic and Lauren was doing no good as she was, fretting for no good purpose.
That decided it. There was nothing to be lost by phoning Cassie and Roisin, so she reasoned, there was nothing lost by phoning.
"That will be great, Roash. I'll be specially looking forward to coming over.
Lauren felt a moment of total shock that swept through her system with a flood of libido and anticipation and a huge feeling of satisfaction that she had done the right thing.
"Don't worry, Lauren. We certainly will," Cassie's seductive tones with an audible grin in her voice gave Lauren all the final reassurance that she needed.
"If Aiden could see me now, and especially tomorrow night," Roisin laughed, marvelling at what her ears were telling her and how much she had changed for the better in her life.
"I know that Aiden is a total nobbing idiot but I didn't think he was a peeping Tom. We won't need any bloody spectators tomorrow night."
Roisin fell about laughing in a totally unrestrained way which brought back the moment when she had first been attracted to Roisin. Her laugh that day was only a restrained hint of what she had come to love about Roisin.
Three women went to bed that night with the promise of the next night of future pleasures. It had taken only a few phone calls to change their lives.