Rosemary: Hi! I’m Rosemary –
Beatrice: I’m Beatrice!
Rosemary: And this is Not Without My Sister!
[both sing the theme tune]
Rosemary: Jesus Christ! That was me doing the drumbeat!
Beatrice: [laughs] I know! [uncontrollable laughter] That was excellent!
[music plays]
Rosemary: How are you Beatrice?
Beatrice: I’m great Rosemary, how are you? How are you getting on without me? I miss you?
Rosemary: Aw. I miss you too.
Beatrice: Are you lonely during the day without me?
Rosemary: [pause] Yeah . . . I’m lonely during the day . . . I mean. Yeah. I really miss you and I really miss the boys. Like, it is nice to have a bit of silence that I haven’t had in a good few weeks [laughing], it’s quite nice to have that time to myself. Although I did imagine I was going to be more productive than I am. And I’m also rediscovering what it’s like to live with cats.
Beatrice: Well, you lived with our cat!
Rosemary: I lived with your cat, who is – I mean, don’t tell Brandin, but much nicer than his cats.
Beatrice: Oh my God. I hope this isn’t one of these situations where I say, ‘Don’s never going to listen to this!’ And of course he listens to it!
Rosemary: [laughing] Then he ends up editing it! Brandin’s cats are not like . . . Like, I lived with two cats before and they were the most cute, affectionate little things. These cats have no interest in me and will endure being rubbed for approximately 10 seconds a day, and then they want to get away from me.
Beatrice: Well, our cat only likes you if you’re on the toilet.
Rosemary: Oh my God! Your cat is so weird!
Beatrice: [laughing]
Rosemary: Like, anybody I’ve tried to say this to, like, ‘Have you ever come across this before?’ Beatrice’s cat Vinny is not . . . is so agreeable. But is not super affectionate. Won’t come up and purr and look for rubs, except for in the middle of the night when you are on the loo.
Beatrice: [laughs] And during the day when you’re on the loo! And, I mean, everybody’s probably like . . . Why is your bathroom door open? Because there are children here. And so there is no point in closing it. Most of the time they come and open the door and they’re like, ‘Mom! Mom! I needed to urgently talk to you about . . . nothing urgent.’ Then they run away with the door wide open, you’re like ‘Come . . . never mind.’
Rosemary: Or actually, Chance, ever single time I went to the toilet in your house, would be like, ‘I need to go toy-wet!’
B: Oh yeah, or he just wants to chat with you.
R: There are three of them.
B: I need to sit on yo lap while you go toy-let! Yeah, exactly.
R: [laughs] But Vinny obviously gets it from Chance, because Vinny comes running in, purring his head off, wrapping himself around your legs and then lays down on his back to be rubbed in a way that he never, ever does otherwise!
B: And the minute you stand up and leave the bathroom, is entirely disinterested.
R: Oh yeah! Oh yeah. Well, no, no, no, wait – yes, when you leave the bathroom, but when you turn on the tap, he’s still into it.
B: Oh my God, jumps into the sink! But the minute you leave the bathroom, and you’re like, oh let’s continue this cuddling on the sofa, he’s like, absolutely not. Get back in the bathroom and I’m all yours, but no.
R: It’s like he’s got some weird fetish. Some tinkling . . .
B: So tell me – I’d totally forgotten about these cats that you had, in . . .
R: My cats in my previous life.
B: I’d totally forgotten about them because, although now when you mentioned them I was like, oh yeah! Dexter and I couldn’t remember the name of the other one.
R: Calvin.
B: That’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where did those names come from?
R: Dexter from, this is embarrassing. Dexter from the TV show, that’s not the embarrassing part. And Calvin from Calvin Harris. I think I was going through a Calvin Harris phase.
B: What? Taylor Swift’s boyfriend?
R: Oh yeah they did date, didn’t they? Not any more, she’s going out with somebody named Joe. Yeah, Calvin Harris the DJ.
B: Oh my God, I have to say my heart sank there when you paused, I was like, ‘Is that the wrong reference?!’ [laughing]
R: No no, I’m pretty sure they were dating for a while.
B: I’m pretty sure I’m also correct. Thank you. Cultural references, A-OK.
R: But like . . . Taylor Swift? We could do a whole episode on Taylor Swift’s partners. Benedict Cumberbatch?
B: Enough. Rosemary, we’re not going to be judging other women.
R: I’m not judging her, I’m just, like . . . it’s very bizarre!
B: Ah, you’re jealous. I didn’t realise that was jealousy, I thought it was judgement.
R: I’m very jealous.
B: I got the J-words mixed up.
R: It’s always jealousy, Beatrice, you bitch.
B: [laughs] All right, okay, so you had these cats – and . . . you treated them exceptionally well?
R: I had these cats . . .
B: But that was the big difference between America and Ireland, right? Because I think . . . Mum is constantly shocked that the cat does everything inside the house and is not allowed outside.
R: Yes. So I got these two kittens, I got these rescue kittens from, I dunno, maybe just somebody I knew had found these kittens and needed a home. Or maybe it was from the vet. Anyway, and I was living in Stoneybatter on my own at the time. I was living in this cute little terraced house that had no hot running water, but that wasn’t really the point. It was cute. I got these two kittens from kittendom, from when they were very small, and I used to let them outside – but because they were kind of house cats who occasionally went outside, they never really went far. There were a couple of times the neighbours called in to say they had found them in on their sofa.
B: ha, ha! How do you find a cat on your sofa? Do you mean that they found them and put them on their sofas?
R: No, I think they walked into the living room and the cats were asleep on their sofa. Just making themselves at home.
B: Did the cats get to go on your sofa? Because that’s a big thing with our Mum and the rest of the world, right? The cat is basically relegated to the basement, right? And when I say basement, in our house it’s like, the downstairs. The cat rarely . . . the cat sometimes gets to come upstairs. It gets to stalk around the house. It doesn’t get to get too comfortable, and then it’s shunted back outside. That was the big thing when I moved here and Don was trying to explain to me, cats live indoors. I really struggled. I was like, I don’t really understand what you mean. What about when the cat goes outside to do its business? He was like, there is no going outside. The cat lives inside. And the cat literally lives inside! It has all of its business inside. The cat never goes . . . the cat, on occasion our cat, Vinny, on occasion runs outside, sees his opportunity, runs outside and then stands, bewildered, in the middle of the garden cos he doesn’t know what to do now he’s outside.
R: Yeah. Vinny’s brief moments of action are confined to within two feet of the door, in either direction. You know what I mean? That’s where he’s speedy and then he suddenly is like, I am outside, where am I going? And then somebody’s picked him up, and he’s like, ‘oh shit! It happened again!’
B: You know what, when we started having this conversation, I was like, maybe this is not Irish cats? Because our cousin’s cat lived in doors, very much; maybe this is actually only Mac Cabe cats? And I actually hate to say this, but I’m now wondering if actually Irish cats also live indoors and only Mac Cabe cats are forced to consider themselves outdoor animals and survive . . . Do you remember one cat . . . I hesitate to say this, but I feel . . . may have drowned under a leaf in a very, very bad thunderstorm? Because it was outside. I see you shaking your head and I’m starting to think I shouldn’t have said that . . . Is that not a true story?
R: It is safe to say . . . That is a true story. It is safe to say that our parents have never been the most conscientious pet owners. And I almost feel like Mum and Dad moved to the country and immediately became mercenary farmers in their thinking about animals, you know what I mean?
B: I would like to say, and I’m now going to take the place of Mum: HOW dare you? I have been an extremely good cat, pet owner. I’ve gotten them all their shots! I take them to the vet when they’re run over by a tractor! I do whatever I need to do to keep these cats and dogs safe. How dare you! Very conscientious pet owner!
R: You know, Mum cannot understand . . . So, Mum and Dad are now looking after Coileán, my dog who will hopefully be coming over to the US . . . I mean, whenever all this shit storm is over.
B: Who will hopefully still be alive, to come to the US.
R: Beatrice! Yes! Touch wood! I’ve thought about that several times! But Mum cannot get over the fact that Coileán likes to be inside with you. You know, she’s like, ‘She loves being with you!’
B: No, Mum’s just pretending. Earlier on today I called Mum and she was on her way down to the shops – not enough social distancing going on in my opinion, but anyway – I FaceTimed her, she was in the car and as we were chatting, who was jumping around in the back of the car? Coileán! Yeah.
R: Aw! She loves to go for a drive.
B: Ah, she does, our Mum. And Coileán loves one too. Yeah. I know. The two of them were in the car together and I was like, our Mum’s definitely getting a lot softer in her advanced years, in her dotage. She’d love that. [laughs]
R: You know Mum came to stay with me one . . . winter. It was when we had the really, really bad snow in Dublin, when all the buses shut down and everything. She was working in town at the time so she came and stayed with me for 10 days, so that she would be able to get to work. I mean, I dunno why she didn’t just stay at home.
B: She’s very conscientious!
R: Very conscientious about work. Not about pets. But she came and stayed with me and I remember one day I got home – I worked a bit later than her so I got home at about 7 – and she was sitting on the couch and she’d one cat in her lap and one cat on her shoulder and I’ve never seen her look so disgusted. She literally looked up at me, like . . . And she was like, ‘I just couldn’t get them off me!’ They were very cuddly, those cats. So they were basically allowed outside and they used to disappear all the time, right? Which, for a couple of hours you’re a bit like, ‘Ooh where are the cats?’ Probably I’m not the most conscientious pet owner either because there was one night that I went out to some club night in the Wright Venue, which, you’ve been out of Dublin for too long but that’s, like, not where you’d be going. I was obsessed with this guy who was going [laughs] so I was like, I have to go. And basically right before I left the house, the cats had gone outside. It was snowing . . . They had not come back inside. They were approximately 16 weeks old.
B: I’m judging you, Rosemary. I’m judging you.
R: I know! It was so bad! And I was like, ‘Oh my taxi’s here!’
B: I’m actually genuinely horrified. And you literally left your little kitties. You left this bit out of the story previously – 16 weeks old?
R: Now – no. They were probably, like . . .
B: 19 weeks old.
R: Five months old. 20 weeks old.
B: Actually horrified.
R: Yeah. No, it was really bad. And then, within about . . . I was there probably . . . It was before midnight, and I got a fit of the guilts and also the snow was getting heavier . . .
B: So you got a fit of the guilts? Or the snow was getting heavier?
R: Both of the above, Beatrice.
B: Both of these can be true!
R: Remember I sent you flowers? You’re supposed to be being nice. Both of the above. And I decided to come home early, and as the taxi . . . The taxi wouldn’t go into my cul de sac because the snow was too deep . . .
B: [gasping] Actually horrified!
R: I was actually fond of a wedge heel then, which was very handy in the snow. I was in my wedges, very handy . . .
B: Actually, this story gets much worse! You were in your wedges! [laughing]
R: I used to love a wedge!
B: Oh, I know you do! I think you still probably have a wedge in your wardrobe, don’t you?
R: No, I only have block-heeled boots, now.
B: Are you sure? I think you might have one pair of wedges that I have been silently not judging. But, go ahead.
R: [high-pitched] I don’t think . . .
B: Oh I might have a wedge in my wardrobe! [laughs] Actually, I have at least two!
R: You definitely have a wedge! Yeah! I actually distinctly remember a pair of wedge boots that you bought, not that long ago!
B: Excuse me! Mine are more, you know . . . I can’t think of any words. Keep going!
R: She’s trying to do bunny-rabbit ears to make it seem intellectual. Mine are like . . . fashion?
B: I was about to say mine are like, vintage? So I’m keeping them for the future? Anyway, go on!
R: Listen, if I still had my wedges they’d be vintage now and that’s the depressing thing about it. But anyway, as I rounded the corner, teetering on my wedges, the two little cats came running out from under somebody’s car! And they were so small they had to jump over the snow, like hop! You know what I mean?
B: God bless them! You’re lucky they weren’t frozen to death.
R: My God. I actually felt so bad.
B: Or, were you lucky, as it turned out? Would that have just been shortening the torture that was their lives? Let’s keep going.
R: Oh my God, stop! You’re really doing this dramatic foreshadowing. I can just tell the story! So anyway. They used to piss off all the time and wander around the neighbourhood, and there were several times that I ended up having to put up signs and stuff, trying to find these cats. And I would eventually find them in some aul one’s house. I remember going down one day and she was like, you know, ‘tut tut. I brought your cats in. They were starving. Gave them a bit of tuna they were delighted!’ I’m like, I’m sure they were delighted! All they get in my house is kibble and bits! Yer one’s there feeding them tins of John West tuna! The two fo them were delighted!
B: Rosemary’s like, ah, you could give that tuna to me! I’m poor! [laughing]
R: [laughs] Probably, I was like, ‘ I wouldn’t be feeding them that tuna!’
B: You’re like, ‘I’ve been sitting in your garden for two hours and you haven’t offered me any tuna!’
R: There was another woman across the road from me who basically, whenever I came home from work, if the cats were out – and like, sometimes they would be out for the whole day, when they got a little bit older. They’d go out in the morning and wouldn’t come back, I’d think they were fine, they’re wandering around.
B: Five and a half months, right?
R: Anyway. I came home one day and she comes marching out of her house and she’s like, ‘You’re a disgrace. Those cats were crying for their mammy!’ Their mammy! And I’m like, ‘Do I look like a cat?! I am their owner!’ But it didn’t seem like the moment for that.
B: I don’t want to go into any nipple conversations again. But. [laughing]
R: [laughs] Jesus Christ. Nipples are gonna haunt me forever. Anyway, listen, long, long tortuous story relatively short . . .
B: That was really inappropriate! Really bad timing! Long, long, long. No. They’re not that long! [laughing]
R: [exasperated] If . . . Oh my God. This episode should just be accompanied by the pictures of me looking shocked and rolling my eyes. So anyway, they used to go missing all the time. I eventually decided to send them home to Mum and Dad’s, because I was like, at least Mum and Dad live in the country; if the cats go out they’ve lots of places to explore, and then they can come home. They’re less likely to end up in some aul one’s house. Because I was convinced these cats were gonna get robbed, because they were so cute.
B: I would like to say, also, encouraged by our mother, you brought them home. To the bosom of the family.
R: Yes. Absolutely encouraged by our mother. And on the day before, say Mum and Dad were coming up on Friday, the day before they were due to get them, one of the cats went fucking missing. And was never seen again.
B: Actually so tragic. [laughing] It’s terrible! Poor cats.
R: It was so tragic! Dexter! He was so cute! And so Calvin went home with Mum and Dad, in the car, and Mum said he cried the whole way in the car. It was snowing, I think it took them about three-and-a-half hours to get home. That was a bad winter.
B: You never told me that he cried!
R: He miaowed and cried the whole way home. Anyway, they got him home and I think he lasted about . . . four weeks? Until the neighbour – Simon – told Mum and Dad that he had seen Calvin had been hit by a car and was dead. Why would you make me tell this sad story?
B: It was so sad! But they’re our best neighbours. Very good neighbours, with the pets. Those poor neighbours have had to literally live through a lot of trauma with our pets, I have to say.
R: They’re very conscientious with pets. They really have. They were the ones who, when Coileán was hit by a car when she was like, once again, with Mum and Dad, about three months old. They live in the middle of nowhere, there are not that many cars.
B: I was actually about to say, people go very fast. We also live on an extremely sharp bend. Extremely sharp, where you reminded me that, at one point, you were out flirting with somebody and almost got killed on that corner.
R: I was sitting on a fence with my then boyfriend.
B: [chuckles]
R: We were just chatting, and I thought it was like a postcard – like an Enid Blyton book, sitting on the fence next to the farm, and we stood up, walked away from the fence and literally within 20 seconds, a man came careening down the road, didn’t see the corner and went straight through that particular fence we’d been sitting on. We could be dead!
B: I could be an only child. I could be the favourite daughter! [laughing]
R: [laughs] And you know Dad went down to help him, because his car had gone over the gate and then flipped over, so Dad went over to help him out of his car, and when yer man got out Dad realised he was drunk, and Dad literally just walked away.
B: Dead right.
R: Just walked away from him, and then I think called the guards.
B: Dad’s a libertarian. Dad was like: here’s your punishment. Take your punishment. [laughing]
R: Here’s your punishment. You get to watch me as I walk away from you. Just like a country and western song.
B: I’ll walk away from you. See you. With my extremely blue jeans. Bye.
R: He does love a blue jean.
B: He loves a good blue jean. But anyway, back to our neighbours who are extremely, extremely . . . we have now realised, patient and lovely. Right? The nicest neighbours ever. Because, I mean . . .
R: Simon was the one who saw Coileán getting hit by the car, and apparently called on the doorbell and said, ‘Claire, em, I think you might want to come down, the dog’s been in a bit of an accident.’ And apparently Mum and Dad then had a fight cos neither of them wanted to go down because they both thought the dog was dead.
B: I can’t even cope with this story! Why did the two of them not just go down together? What is the problem? Can you walk down 13 stairs together and just go out?
R: I’d say Dad was busy sitting in his Lay-Z boy.
B: Oh, no doubt. Thirteen stairs and 42 steps. And down you go. Not the end of the world. But, I mean, think about poor Simon and Dee, now they’ve seen: poor whatever his name is, Calvin; Coileán, and then that other poor cat – the like mangey-face. I can’t remember what her name was. What was . . . [laughing] What was her name?
R: I’d actually rather not say her name because it reflects very badly on me.
B: What was her name?
R: Mercedes.
B: [laughs] Why does that reflect badly on you?! That you’re just very . . . money-hungry?
R: Very money-huh… I was like 19 or something, why did I want to call her Mercedes? I don’t know.
B: Oh, I thought you were going to say 11.
R: Exactly! I was way too old!
B: Mercedes was a very cute cat, though, in fairness.
R: Oh my God she was a gorgeous cat, who Mum HATED. Used to say things like, ‘That cat has such a mean face.’
B: Well, we should put into perspective, Mum has that weird thing, and I’m convinced she has that . . . I was going to say disease. Sorry, Mum. She has that condition called synesthesia, you know she’s always talking about names being pointy or sharp. She’s very obsessed with, ‘oh my friend Andrew’s coming over . . .’ ‘ANDREW! What a pointy name! I can’t even . . . UGH! Annnnn-drew! Pointy!’ And you’re like, what are you talking about?!
R: Now. In Mum’s defence I think she actually likes the name Andrew, bizarrely.
B: No, she doesn’t. She’s going to say she doesn’t. She likes the name Ian.
R: Oh, Ian! That’s the one that I can never understand. That seems sharp to me! Ian.
B: If I was a boy, I was going to be Ian. Beatrice or Ian. Riddle me that. And . . .
R: Actually you would’ve been better off being a girl called Ian, being honest.
B: That would have been actually so cool, can you imagine?
R: Although . . .
B: Not at the time! Not when I was like 42 feet tall.
R: Oh, true. But you know in this excellent new show, Warrior Nun, on Netflix, that I’ve been watching, there’s a sister Beatrice and she’s actually cool, so maybe your name is going to see a . . .
B: I actually can’t cope with this! There’s a sister Beatrice and she’s actually cool? !Thank you, Rosemary. Of course she’s cool.
R: But, I mean, a cool nun? That’s rare.
B: A cool Beatrice, was more the implication, but whatever. That’s fine. Thanks. Of course she’s cool? She’s a nun? She’s religious – and she’s called Beatrice? [laughs] No, I hear you.
R: That part – literally, those four sentences should have been made into a sound byte of, like, this woman thinks she’s cool. Of course she’s cool? She’s a nun? She’s named Beatrice? She’s cool. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You’re delighted with yourself!
B: So, anyway. Mercedes? The only thing I remember about Mercedes, because I think – I don’t know, you were 19, so I was 23 . . . em.
R: You were gone.
B: [laughs]
R: You were 25! Jesus.
B: I was 26. [laughs] So I was gone. You were 19. You were extremely immature. You were calling cats things you should never have been calling them.
R: After my dream car.
B: Thank God there was no TikTok cos you would have been the ultimate loser on it. But whatever. No judgement.
R: I was just about to say, thank God I didn’t call her Lamborghini, that would have been worse.
B: WHY.
R: Okay. Moving on.
B: I was away, so it can’t be my fault, I was living a really cool life elsewhere, acting really cool and grown-up. You were 19 calling cats Lamborghini and Mercedes. The only story I remember about this cat, though, was the one where Dad said something about – her tail got chopped off or something and he described an extremely hideous drive down to the vet. I can only assume Mum was driving? Because he told me how he held her – he cradled her on his knee and he just kept talking about . . . a bloody stump.
R: No no no! No no no, stop! This was, Simon the neighbour again, called In to go, ‘Claire, Philip, the cat’s been in a bit of a tussle!’
B: I’m sorry. Do Simon and Dee actually live in the world – where are Mum and Dad? When they go into their house do they suddenly go through the wardrobe in Narnia? Can they not see what’s happening on the road? How do Simon and Dee see everything?
R: Mum and Dad are hiding in the Lay-Z Boy tower while Simon and Dee are entertaining the cat.
B: –are living in real life.
R: Yeah. But basically, this cat, Mum hated this cat, thought it was very mean, didn’t ever want it in the house, and then one day was over in Simon and Dee’s and – that cat, Mercedes, had had kittens. And one of their kittens had gone to the neighbours and then the Mum and the kitten had been best friends, they used to hang out together all the time.
B: Aw! So cute!
R: And Mum was over in Simon and Dee’s one day and saw Pringle, their cat, asleep on the sofa, and said, ‘oh my God, your cat’s so lucky, our cat’s not allowed in the house’ and Dee went, ‘oh, well…’ and pointed to the other chair, where Mercedes was fast asleep. So the cat loved Simon and Dee and, I think, spent more time with them, for obvious reasons.
B: Eh, no doubt. And then at the end of the day was like, I have to go back to the – back to the workhouse.
R: Have to go back to the cellar! Like . . . She was never even allowed to sleep, like, never even allowed to sleep upstairs. She just slept downstairs all the time.
B: Poor Cinderella Mercedes! Now I feel so bad for her! And then she got her tail lopped off.
R: Then she got her tail – Dad said, basically . . .
B: We don’t like the fact that you’re living next door, so they cut off her tail. [laughs]
R: No! Simon called in one day to say . . .
B: I’m sorry, this is not funny. [laughing]
R: No, you’re awful. You’re seeming very psychotic now, as well. Very uncaring. So Simon called in to say, ‘The cat’s been in a bit of an accident’, and when they went down, Dad said it was as if–
B: Poor Simon!
R: It was as if her tail was a kebab and all the meat had been shorn off, is how Dad described it.
B: [snorts of laughter] And then he said he had her in the car on the way down to the vet and, he said, she didn’t seem to realise, and she was delighted . . .
R: No no no – he put her in a cardboard box, in the car, no the way to the vet, and as soon as the car started, the cat jumped out, on to his lap and began to purr and wag her tail.
B: Her kebab.
R: Yes! So Dad said, by the time they got to the vets, he was covered in blood. The cat had been, like, purring and making little cat biscuits . . .
B: You know what?
R: Serves him right.
B: It’s the least he could put up with after, poor next-door neighbours have to come over, every five seconds it seems like, to tell us there’s been another accident. I’m sure they’re not delighted. Oh, we have to go over to the Mac Cabe again, tell them there’s been another graphic accident with one of their animals.
R: Yeah. So then her tail had to be two-thirds amputated, which is very unfortunate. Didn’t seem to affect her . . . granted, poor quality of life. I think she was still enjoying her time in the neighbours’. But then, last year, or the year before maybe, when Mum and Dad were in America – I remember the last time I had seen the cat in the house, I’d said to Mum and Dad, that cat needs to be put down. She was about 16 or 17.
B: You’re so mean! You’re so horrible!
R: I’m very callous.
B: So cruel! Just cos you don’t like the look of her?
R: She was basically – No. There’s an episode of Buffy, right, where Buffy’s Mum makes this friend, who you’re kind of suspicious that they’re having a relationship. A lesbian relationship, but it’s never really confirmed. But anyway. She makes this friend and at the same time she gets this African mask and puts it on the wall and it turns out the African mask raises the dead, and the first dead it raises is this cat that they’d found, dead in the attic. And that raised-from-the-dead cat was what Mercedes was walking like in the last year of her life. She was walking like a little zombie cat and she also had started to drool really badly – so she would kind of zombie her way over to you, sit on your lap, start to make biscuits and drool everywhere. And there’d be hair falling off of her in tufts. She was just really old. And the last time I saw her, I said to Mum and Dad, ‘I think the cat’s probably at the end of her life now.’
B: She’s had it! I’m sure you didn’t say that. I’m sure you were just like, ‘That moggy’s had it!’
R: This cat is shit for family photos, she needs to go! She’s not getting any likes on Instagram. She’s had enough.
B: [laughing]
R: So anyway, then Mum and Dad went to America, to visit you. It’s all your fault. For probably four or five weeks. They love coming over for ages and leaving me and poor Mercedes alone at home. But the neighbours were looking after Mercedes. But anyway when Mum and Dad got back, they were home about a day and they called into Simon and Dee and Dee said, ‘oh, by the way, we ended up taking Mercedes to the vet last week and she was put to sleep.’ And Mum was horrified! That, like . . . Just, like . . .
B: [laughing]
R: I don’t know what – she was kind of horrified that the cat had been put down, but I was also going, that was the humane thing to do! Dee said the poor cat had started jumping up on the couch and just kept falling off, just plopping off the side of the couch.
B: Poor Dee! Like, I can’t even believe that, like . . .
R: Poor Simon and Dee.
B: Poor Simon and Dee had to make these monumental decisions, like, for our cat! God love them! And, like, at the same time, Rosemary, I’d like to point out – and I mean, no offence to you, but they seem like incredibly alert and engaged and involved neighbours. Like, literally the polar opposite of what I understand you to be, from every story you’ve ever told me, where everything that happens in your neighbourhood is, like . . . You are basically in a coma by comparison. I feel like every cat in the neighbourhood could be run over outside your window and you’d open the curtain and go, ‘oh my God! What happened here?’
R: [laughing] I mean . . .
B: I do need to take some photos of your face. Actually classic.
R: This is entirely unfair and based on the fact that, one time, my car got broken into, every single window smashed and it was attempted to be hot wired, right outside my bedroom window. Anybody would have slept through that!
B: I think there was another one, as well, where the neighbours got entirely broken into, and . . .
R: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah! That wasn’t – I wasn’t even asleep for that, I was just in the house, watching TV or something!
B: You were literally next door while the place was taken apart.
R: One of the neighbours called in to say, oh did you hear anything from my house? And I was like, no! You know, what happened? And he was like, oh it’s just I just came home and all the doors have been kicked in.I was like, what?! And it turns out the guards had come over, there was nobody home and they’d broken down the doors because one of the people living in the house – which was a series of flats – one of the people living in one of the flats was dealing drugs, and they’d got a tip-off or something and come in and broken down all the doors. And I was at home, just pottering around, minding my own business – for once – which is very unusual for me actually, because I thought you were being serious. I was very alert! I used to love calling the guards from behind my net curtains.
B: I know you do – you and your friends love nothing more than a good guard call! I have to say, that actually reminds me – I’d totally forgotten about this! Well, I wasn’t there. I mean, most of these stories I was not there and I can’t blame myself for not being there. But I was not there – I was out drinking, you’ll be surprised to hear, with my friend Julie and her sister Anna, on New Year’s Eve in Paris, and we were out doing a pub crawl.
R: Oh, well listen! New Year’s Eve! It was a special occasion, otherwise I’d say you would’ve been at home.
B: I’d like to say, it wasn’t anywhere near midnight. I think this was more like noon – or maybe 2pm. [laughs] And we got back to our apartment and we opened the door to our apartment and we’d a two-bedroom apartment with a really nice kitchen and dining room-cum-living room, whatever. And we opened the door to our apartment. We went out, we had our pub crawl, we came back, places were closing cos they were going to reopen again for later on, you know what I mean? They were all closing, we were like, [drunk voice] ‘It’s disgraceful, I can’t believe these places are closing.’ So anyway, we went back home at about 4pm and we opened the door to our apartment – it was freezing, because it was Paris on, whatever, December 31st. I was about to go, whatever date New Year’s Eve is, okay? December 31st, right? And so obviously the weather’s cold. And it was snowing, etc, and we went in, the place was absolutely frigid and we were like, what is going on? So we went into the house and the kitchen window was totally kicked in, totally broken. Now, we were on the fifth or fourth floor of a building, and there was a note on our table and it said, ‘Sorry – your bathroom whatever was leaking into the downstairs apartment, so we had to come and kick in your window and fix it. Best regards, your local fire brigade.’ And we were horrified, because that was literally, like, so anyway we go and we knock on the next door neighbour, we’re like, oh my God, what happened? They’re like, ‘oh yeah, seven really good-looking firemen just filed out of your apartment…’ We were like, OH. MY. GOD. Because, in Paris – now, this is a sheer generalisation to say every fireman is extremely good-looking, but there is literally an annual party called, like the Fireman’s Party, where they all do, you know, what’s that movie, that thing where they’re all, like . . .
R: The Full Monty?
B: Where they all, like, do the full monty on fire poles. And, being Irish . . .
R: You’ve never seemed as old as you do right now. What the hell?!
B: I would like to . . . I was too young! I only heard about it! I’d like to say, being Irish I was so mortified at this party every year, but I couldn’t take . . . It was like a car crash. I couldn’t take my eyes off these firemen, sliding up and down these poles – until they started taking their clothes off and then I would always be like, oh my God, I can’t. I can’t look. It was just too embarrassing. Everybody was having too much of a good time. Meanwhile, six or seven of these extremely professional firemen were kicking in our window on New Year’s Eve. Imagine! Had we just been sitting in the kitchen when . . . I mean, okay, they would have rung on the doorbell and we would have been like, come on in. But imagine if we hadn’t heard them and they’d kicked in the window and then – But also the window was about two feet by one foot, it was absolutely minute! So I don’t even know how they got in. It was an absolute disaster. And we totally missed our opportunity. And then! Of course, the other problem was, it was France and it was Paris on New Year’s Eve, so nobody came to fix the window for about a month! Because they were all like, [French accent], “bed, it is New Year’s eve. It is now seven days past New Year’s Eve. We cannot come, we are busy. Oh! It is now ze end of January. We ‘av a backlog since New Year’s Eve. We are not available.’ So we were absolutely freezing for a full month, and extremely resentful.
R: You know I dated a fireman for a while but he would never put on his uniform for me.
B: I hope my silence echoes everybody else’s. I’m like, WHY would you want him to put on his uniform? That is unbelievably creepy. That is, like, akin to, ‘Once I was a school girl. Put on your school uniform for me.’ I’m now creeped out. Oh. My. God. Next time I’m just going to video your face for this whole thing so everybody can see it.
R: [laughs]
B: You’re looking shocked, horrified, shocked, offended, shocked and horrified again. I can’t even get over this.
R: But – sorry. Like, wanting to play out a fantasy with a fireman – basically, my whole fantasy is that I would one day be light enough for a fireman to carry me out a window . . .
B: Oh, I thought you were going to say, ‘I would one day be lighted on fire and a fireman could put me out!’ [laughs] One day be light enough for a fireman to put me on his back and shimmy me down five flights from a broken window! No. What is this fantasy?
R: [laughing] To, like, throw me over his shoulder and be like, ‘I’ve got you.’
B: Listen. I guarantee you that most firemen will tell you that the most exciting part of their job is probably not carrying people on their backs. That’s actually probably the worst part of their jobs – no offence to you. But that does remind me – because, didn’t the firemen have to come out to examine those balloons on your doorstep? And that’s not a metaphor. [laughter]
R: You know well that there were no firemen involved in that balloon story.
B: [peals of laughter]
R: So . . . You’re so mean!
B: Oh my God.
R: This was . . . So this was just another example of me calling the guards when I lived in Dublin 1. When I lived in Dublin 1, I used to call the guards . . . I used to have the guards on speed dial, in the Bridewell. But I used to call them – fairly regularly, for a variety of different reasons. But this was a serious one! When myself and my boyfriend, I was gonna say we woke up one morning, but we actually didn’t – we didn’t open the door until about 3pm.
B: [laughing]
R: So we were never sure when the balloons got stuck to the front door. And also! I was very concerned that they’d been there all day and the neighbours had seen them.
B: You know what that seems like a waste of a day to me! By comparison, we’d already had our entire pub crawl and you weren’t even out of your house! [laughing]
R: I am very boring. But basically one day I opened up my front door and somebody had taped three balloons.
B: Red balloons.
R: In primary colours. No, one was red and one was blue . . . Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I have a picture of them somewhere, which I put online and then loads of people said that the handwriting was mine.
B: [laughing] Was it?!
R: [inhaling deeply] No, it wasn’t! I would never tape balloons to my own door!
B: Oh, I would love if you did! Were they your balloons? Seriously, were they your balloons? There’s another – hashtag, weretheyyourballoons [laughing]
R: Hashtag notmyballoons. Hashtag notmyhandwriting. So, open the front door and somebody had taped three balloons to the front door that said, something like, “Fuck you Rosemary Mac Cabe.”
B: [snorts of laughter]
R: And then on another balloon, it said . . .
B: [laughing] Sorry! Sorry.
R: The sympathy! I can honestly . . .
B: I was genuinely horrified when it happened but it’s also so hilarious! Sorry! No, I actually genuinely thought it must have been scary, at the time, but now that you’re a full continent away . . .
R: It was scary! And you know what else, I was reading Stephen King’s It at the time. I really was.
B: Maybe it was your boyfriend!
R: That made it so much worse.
B: Maybe he was gaslighting you.
R: No it wasn’t, because of what happened next. One of the balloons said, ‘You’re a thalidomide looking gowlbag.’
B: [laughing] What is gowlbag?! It sounds like the best insult ever. I must look it up. Just in case it’s really rude, I don’t know what it means. So, in case it’s incredibly insulting – I’d like to say . . .
R: In case it’s un-PC. . .
B: I have yet to look it up.
R: So anyway, we took these balloons inside and I was like, oh my God, who would do this? And also, how long have these been here? How many neighbours have seen them?
B: Your boyfriend was hiding the Sharpie. He’s like, I don’t know!
R: No! And the reason I know it wasn’t him is because he went, ‘What does thalidomide mean?!’
B: Rosemary, he was a lot younger than you.
R: And I had to explain it to him! He was a lot younger than me. He still is.
B: And a lot more perfectly formed.
R: I wouldn’t say that now. But yeah, I had to explain thalidomide to him. But anyway I ended up calling the guards, cos I was just like, in my head I was like, this could be what I would read about in Closer magazine as, a random stranger tried to murder me, and the first step of it was, they taped balloons to my door, so I was like, I should ring and make–
B: Could you even have said, in the New Yorker? Or in The Irish Times? In Closer magazine? Are they even real stories, in fairness?
R: Well, you never know. But these are the kinds of stories you read in the hairdresser. Anyway, I was like, if this is the first step in the intimidation tactics, I have to call the guards.
B: So this must have been scary. You wake up, you get up and you open the door and there are these hate-filled messages scribbled all over balloons, right? Primary-coloured balloons, all over your doorstep.
R: Thank you for that dramatic recap.
B: Yeah! I’m not even – you were literally . . . AND! Somebody knew where you lived! That’s pretty terrifying, right? So somebody who hated you enough to blow balloons up to . . . 90% of their capacity and then scribble really bad . . .
R: They were helium balloons! They weren’t even blown up!
B: To actually take a machine! To blow balloons up to 90% of their capacity and then scribble all over them with really bad handwriting, in Sharpies, and then go to all the trouble of going to your house in the middle of the night and tying them there . . . That’s scary!
R: I like to think it was an opportunist, who had seen my house in the background of a Snapchat story or something, recognised the door, and happened to be at a party where there were helium-filled balloons, and they had a Sharpie.
B: Absolutely not! Nobody recognises a door! This person stalked you! And then put these balloons up. [laughs] Sorry!
R: Well . . . I wish you had been the guard I’d called, because when I called the guards, the guard was like, “balloons?” [pause] “On your door – and do you think now that somebody you know . . . .” And I was like, ‘No. I don’t.’
B: Probably yes! But like, Irish people are not that good at expressing emotions, right? So you’re like, yes! It’s my friend! She’s got a lot of things she wants to say to me.
R: The guard, anyway, then I went, ugh, one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Then I went, ‘No, like, the thing is . . . I’m a blogger and I have a bit of an online following.’ And he literally was like, ‘A . . . blogger?!’
B: [loud, cackling laughter]
R: Oh my God, it was so embarrassing. But I was trying to say to him, like, I’m slightly well known so it could be a random stranger.
B: So you’re slightly well known and yet somebody just recognised your door . . . opportunistically, having spotted it on an Instagram post . . .
R: But I was thinking, somebody who followed me on Snapchat, who lived near me, could have recognised my door!
B: Rosemary, they don’t need to live near you to hate you. They could live anywhere and hate you. [laughing]
R: But they need to live near me to recognise my door, you absolute bitch. Why are you always like this?! I’m trying to have a nice conversation! Anyway! The guard refused to come and investigate my balloons for fingerprints.
B: [loses control of herself altogether, more laughter] The guard refused to come and investigate my balloons!!!!!! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
R: He told me that if I wanted to I could bring them down to the station.
B: If you need your balloons investigated . . . I actually can’t.
R: He told me I could bring them down to the station! I was like, what am I gonna do . . .
B: You’re like, THEY’RE RIGHT HERE! [laughing] Sorry.
R: That’s very immature.
B: I know.
R: I was like, what am I gonna do, walk through town with these balloons that say, Rosemary Mac Cabe, you thalidomide looking gowlbag, and bring them to the police station?
B: They’re helium! You could’ve put them in a plastic bag! Could you not have deflated them and put them in a plastic bag?
R: I felt that would have destroyed the evidence somehow!
B: You needed to bring them inflated . . .
R: But I’m saying, I didn’t bring them to the guards!
B: Because . . .
R: He made me feel very foolish!
B: Because you thought you’d have to carry them behind you, fully inflated?
R: That was just one of the concerns! Well, Beatrice! I’ve watched crime shows! That’s evidence! You’re not supposed to mess with the evidence!
B: quite seriously, we just watched – what was it called? I said to Don, what was that TV show called, the one about unsolved mysteries, what’s the name? He’s like, ‘Unsolved Mysteries’. So yes. I agree with you, Rosemary. You think these things mean nothing but actually then you end up dead. I agree with you. So you were dead right to go to the police! And I think they should have taken you more seriously, all jokes aside. But as it turned . . . Seriously! Seriously. I actually would be freaked if I found those balloons, especially living here in the middle of nowhere. But, like, living in Dublin also – I would have been absolutely freaked.
R: Thank you. I was freaked. And I didn’t feel like the guards took my plight seriously.
B: And? What happened then?
R: Well. Then a couple of weeks later, I posted about it on my blog, and then a whole load of people on online forums were like, that looks really like your handwriting, and I just stopped talking about it.
B: [laughs]
R: So embarrassing! I mean, nothing happened – I don’t really know what I was expecting. I was half expecting, like, what’ll be next? A sheep’s head on my doorstep? But there was nothing.
B: I had the police called on me once, but it really wasn’t an exciting story.
R: What did you do?
B: Literally nothing. I was living in Milan at the time and I had, for the first time ever, I had – I lived next to this couple who had a new baby, and I mean, I 100% having had four new babies myself understand that there is nothing you can do to control a baby’s crying, right? But it doesn’t make it any less annoying. Their baby cried all hours of the day, all hours of the night, for what seemed like a decade. Even though I only lived there for about a year. Anyway – one time, ONE TIME, I had a dinner party, like the one and only time I had people over, and I had a dinner party, literally a dinner party – so at about 10pm there were eight of us, I think, having dinner – literally it was like a three-course meal and it was a normal dinner party, and . . .
R: You cooked a three-course meal for people?
B: Yeah, totally. I mean, some of it wasn’t cooked, you know.
R: Oh fair, okay.
B: Anyway, yer man the husband knocked on the door and he’s like, can you guys keep it down? We have a baby. And I’m like, OH I KNOW. And I said, well yeah we’re just having dinner, and we weren’t – it wasn’t like there was loud music. I mean, it was loud but we were just chatting, it was just good fun. And he knocked on the door again, 20 minutes later, like, you guys need to keep it down, my baby can’t sleep. You feel like going, your baby never sleeps! So . . . but also, we accept and put up with you the whole time, like, this sis not – its not like this is every night, so I feel like you’re being a bit unreasonable. Next thing you know, the police knock at the door. Oh, we’ve got a complaint from your next-door neighbour. And then the superintendent of the building called up the next day, your next-door neighbour complained that you had been too loud, blah blah blah. And, like, literally it was like a joke. I mean, people are – people are odd. I feel like it’s, you know, one rule for you and one rule for everybody else. But it was very odd, because I feel like I’ve always been very much like, oh well it’s just tonight, it’s not every night, about any neighbour I’ve ever had when they have massive parties, or when they do whatever! I never complain the first or the second or the third time. I would only ever complain . . . I don’t even know that I’ve ever really complained about anything, cos I’m always like, well, you look the other way and I’ll look the other way, kind of thing. But I realised that I look the other way and most people don’t look the other way. And I find it kind of interesting.
R: Have you ever called the guards on anyone? Neighbours, like.
B: Yeah – but I mean, it wasn’t really like calling the guards. I called the guards once when I lived in Dallas, because in the middle of the night, 3am, the doorbell rang. So the two of us jumped out of bed, freaked out, like who the hell is ringing the doorbell at 3am? We lived in a very suburban, sedate neighbourhood, and I went out and I was like, ‘Hello?’ And we heard ‘OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN IT NOW! OPEN THE DOOR!’ And banging, banging, banging on the door. And the doorbell ringing incessantly. We lived on one level, what’s it called? A bungalow. And our kids were in the window, right beside where this person was thumping at the door, so it was kind of unnerving. It was a woman, actually, and she kept shouting, ‘OPEN THE DOOR!’ And banging on it. And she had a box in her hand. We were looking out the peephole and she had a box in her hand, and because it’s America – it never occurred to me, but Don was like, ‘I’m really nervous there might be a gun in that box. What’s she doing?’ And so I called the police, and the police were like, ‘Well ma’am, we don’t have anybody in the neighbourhood so we can’t come over.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean you can’t come over? I’m calling you cos there’s someone knocking at my door, it’s 3am.’ ‘Well ma’am do you feel in fear for your life? You need to do whatever you need to do.’ I mean, I’m thinking, ‘What do you mean, I need to do whatever? I need you to come over here now to address the issue that I’m having on my doorstep.’ And they were like, ‘Well, we’re not available.’ And I said, ‘This is not okay! I’m calling the police and you’re telling me you can’t do anything!’ And they hung up on me! So I called back! I called 911 again, and this person was like, ‘Yeah, you were extremely rude last time. You were very beligerent. What do you expect from us?’ And I’m like, ‘I want you to come and deal with this!’ So they hung up on me – AGAIN. So then I called 911 and got a different person, and this person was like, ‘Oh we’ll send somebody out but there’s not gonna be anybody there for about two hours.’ And I said, ‘What am I supposed to do?’ And they said, ‘You need to do whatever you feel is necessary to protect yourself. Whatever you feel the need to do, you need to do it,’ basically, because it’s one of those stand your ground situations.
R: Oh, yeah!
B: I was like, what the hell! So of course we’re sitting in the sitting room, terrified – what the hell is going on? We didn’t have a gun, like. We don’t have a gun or anything like that, you know – and that’s not . . . It’s not my first, or second, or third or fourth inclination. And the woman just kept shouting at us, and every time we would go to the door, to talk to her, she would just scream at us. LET ME IN, LET ME IN, OPEN THE DOOR etc. It was terrifying. Eventually, the next day, a police person knocked on the door and said, ‘Just so you know, that was actually a parent of one of your neighbours. She suffers from dementia and she somehow opened the front door and was going around the neighbourhood and she was knocking on doors. Sorry about that. Thanks very much.’ And I was literally like, if we’d been a different person and had a gun, we could totally have shot her dead. That is not okay. Anyway. I mean, we didn’t. So.
R: Oh, that’s so scary. Her poor kids, as well – that must be so awful.
B: I have to say, it was pretty terrifying for us.
R: I mean, awful for you as well, yes.
B: The last thing you expect at 3 in the morning is somebody knocking on your door. It’s so terrifying. You’re so vulnerable! You’re in your pyjamas and you just . . . It’s so dark and there’s nobody around and you’re just like, my God, my kids. You immediately go to the most terrifying movie place – and, in fact, it was nothing. Like, we’re so – well, I mean, I go to the most negative, terrifying place. And it wasn’t that at all.
R: I would probably think of the Purge. I’d be like, oh my God, what is happening?
B: I haven’t watched that.
R: Well. You’re just as well. You know, about two or three nights before I moved out of my house in Dublin, similar but not at all similar, I woke up at like 2am to this knock-knock-knock, shout shout shout, knock-knock-knock, and it was the house across the road and there were these two girls, dressed up to the nines, and it was freezing – I think it was November. In these tiny little dresses, really high heels, knocking on the door and going, ‘Michael! Michael! Open the door, open the door!’ One of them was bawling her head off, and the other one was being – was very drunk but also very rational and going, ‘Listen!’ They were from the country. ‘Listen! We just need to go – we’ll just go down the road, we’ll find a hotel, we’ll find a room for the night and we’ll come back. Michael’s fine, we’ll find him later.’ And yer one’s like, ‘No! He’s in here! Michael! Michael!’ Screaming crying. And then the two of them ended up sitting down on the step outside the front door, and they were like, shivering, little, tiny, little, “Miiiiiiii-chaaaael.”
B: [laughs]
R: And I was in my house, and initially I was kind of pissed off cos they were being so fucking loud. Then I was watching through the window going, where’s Michael? What the fuck is going on? And eventually I was like, aw they’re freezing, the poor crayturs. So I opened up the door, and I was like [whispers] girls! And they looked up – the heads shot around, and I was like, ‘D’you wanna come in here?’ And they were like, ‘oh, thanks!’ And the two of them came running over in their little heels. And I remember, because I was just about to move, I basically had nothing in the house, I had no spare duvets, no spare blankets. The only blanket I had was this really scratchy crocheted granny square blanket that’s been through the wash one too many times, is now covered in dog hair as well . . . and I was like, ‘Sorry, this is the only blanket I have!’
B: They were probably like, ‘Yeah right!’
R: I’m sure they were like, who is this one? I made them tea and toast – so Irish – but it turns out Michael was in there all along!
B: Michael, you creep!
R: Apparently, he was asleep. I know! The next day they came back with a box of chocolates for me, it was very nice.
B: I love them!
R: They were very cute.
B: I have to say, I loved your neighbours. Your neighbours were actually classic. My favourite neighbour of all time was the one, was it Electric Picnic, what was it?
R: Oh, no no. So I lived right down the road from Croke Park so whenever there was a GAA match or a big concert, you’d get loads of people streaming by, and when the gig or the game – what do they do at sports? The game – when it was over . . . What do they be doing at all? When it was over, you would get loads of people who would basically come up our road to pee behind the cars.
B: Charming.
R: Because there would’ve been way too big a queue in Croke Park, or whatever.
B: This was even pre-coronavirus.
R: They’d get 10 minutes down the road and be like, oh I’m bursting, see a car up this cul de sac and run up to pee behind it. So after the Beyoncé concert, one of my neighbours across the road, I think she was in her early 20s, she used to sit outside on the front step with this guy she was dating, nearly every night and they used to order takeaway and eat it on the front step. I think her parents wouldn’t let him in. Because I think they’d had a big fight, so he wasn’t allowed in the house. So she would come out and sit on the step and they would have takeaway on the front step. So this was the night of the Beyoncé concert and there were thousands of young women, basically, walking down the road. And I heard this kind of little kerfuffle at one stage, and I used to love going into the bathroom because you could open the window really silently, just tilt the window open slightly. So I’d go into the bathroom, tilt the window open, leave all the lights off and just listen. I used to do it all the time.
B: [laughs]
R: Neighbours used to have fights on the street as well, you’d be up there with your ear against the window going, what’s happening now? So basically, I put my ear up against the window, listened. And she was shouting at someone and going, ‘You’re after peeing in front of my car! You’re after peeing on my car!’ You’d hear this other little squeaky voice going, ‘Oh my God I’m SO sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to,’ and pulling up the knickers basically, behind this car, going ‘I’m SO sorry!’ But, like, yer one didn’t own a car?
B: [laughing]
R: And it definitely wasn’t her parents’ car, either, she was basically just sitting out there waiting for anyone to come pee on the street so she could then go, you’re after peeing on my car!
B: I love this girl. I actually love her.
R: There was actually another time I’ve just remembered, it wasn’t her – but it was another neighbour, a guy who was probably in his maybe late teens, early 20s, and it was after, not Beyoncé, I think it was after the Spice Girls, and he was out and he started videoing people. And then he and this group of girls had this big fight cos they were like, ‘You can’t video us!’ And he was like, ‘You’re breaking the law!’ And they were like, ‘You videoed us!’ And he was like, ‘You’re peeing in public! Go away!’ And they were having this big back and forth. She was like, ‘delete that video’ and he was like ‘piss off!’
B: And you were listening at the window, or you were actually listening from elsewhere.
R: I was listening at the window. Beatrice! There was nowhere else to listen. I remember one time, there was this huge fight on our street and one of the windows got smashed, and the next door neighbours were screaming at each other. And I had called the guards. And I was well used to calling the guards at this stage, and when the guards would say, do you want to give us your name? I’d be like, no I don’t, I don’t want to be involved! I just want to let you know! I don’t want my name mentioned at all!
B: Such a massive nerd, I can’t even get over it.
R: I know! But sometimes there’d be . . . There was one big fight, once, where this guy basically was knocking on this other guy’s house, telling him to come out, he was going to beat the shit out of him, then he tried to break the window – so you would be a bit worried! You know, about the street! But anyway. So I used to call the guards and not give them my details . . .
B: Not give them my name, I’d give them my neighbour’s name.
R: No no no, I wouldn’t give them anybody’s name, I’d just be like, ‘I’m just doing my citizenly duty’ – and then I’d hang up, then wait by the bathroom window.
B: [laughing]
R: But this time, this time when the guards arrived, I heard them walking up the road. Next thing you know, our next door neighbour, who was French, comes out of his door and goes, ‘Allo yes, yes. I called you. It is zem!’ And he’s pointing up the road at the house having the fight. And I was like, oh my God! He’s an eejit! What’s he doing?! And he was literally standing at his door going, yes I called you and they’re the ones with the problem, pointing up the road.
B: You know what? That’s good, transparent Frenchness.
R: He had the courage of his convictions. Unlike moi.
B: Exactly.
R: But that was also – to my shame, the same French couple who, when they had a baby and I remember them telling me that they were having a baby and I was like, oh my God that’s so exciting. I think I’d met him the day his wife gave birth and he was like, oh we decided to call him Arthur. And I went – ugh, you should just never talk to French people – I went, ‘After Arthur Guinness?’ And he looked very calm and understandingly at me and he said, ‘Uh, non. After Arthur and ze round table?’
B: [laughing] Arthur Guinness! In fairness to you, listen, you lived in front of Arthur Guinness’ grave all your life.
R: I did, for years Beatrice. For years.
B: Yes. Top of mind, top of mind.
R: Yeah. It wasn’t my fault.
R: Thank you so much for listening to Not Without My Sister. You can get us on Instagram @rosemarymaccabe with an a in my Mac and Beatrice is @beatricemaccabe with an a in her Mac. We have a website, notwithoutmysis.com, where you’ll find show notes and transcriptions of every episode, lovingly typed into the computer by moi. And – ooh we also have an Instagram, @notwithoutmysister AND if you have two minutes and you’d like to leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts, we love them. Don’t we?
B: We do love them. We absolutely love them. I particularly love them.
R: [laughs] She does particularly love them. Highlights of our days! Thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next week!
B: Thank you and goodbye!
R: Not Without My Sister is produced by Liam Geraghty. Sound design is by Don Kirkland. Original music is by Don Kirkland as well, multi-talented. And our original illustration is by Lindsay Neilson.
