Best Friends

I had a best friend called Ellen. She was my best friend from the age of five when we were in ‘Babies’ in primary school together right up until she got married and moved to Boston in 1988. We went to Eglantine school when the desks still had inkwells; you could lift up the tops and store your books inside and had benches that could sit two pupils. Our desk was up against the wall. Ellen sat on the inside next to the wall and when she got bored, she would raise her right leg and shove me onto the floor. She was half blind and I had a hearing aid; as a pair we functioned quite well. Our teacher often remarked, “The lord made ye but the devil matched ye.”

We were both manic readers. My library of Enid Blyton books was bigger than hers. It was so big that several weeks passed before I realised that Ellen was quietly stealing them from under my nose. One afternoon when we were in Ellen’s house, she proudly showed off her newly extended collection. Impressed, I took down a book and looked through it. My name on the inside cover had been clumsily scrubbed out. I looked at Ellen and said, “But these are my books!” Ellen panicked and snatching the book back said, “No, they’re mine now.” I had to fight her for them.

I lived very close to the school and walked home every day for my lunch. On the way, I passed Ballingcurrig Stores, outside of which were several bubble gum and gob stopper machines. I discovered one day, by accident, that one of the machines was faulty i.e. that you could turn the handle and still get a bubble gum without putting in the penny first. I couldn’t believe my luck. I cherished my secret stash and modestly rationed myself to two bubble gums a day. I let Ellen in on the secret. The day I told her, I went home for lunch as usual and passed the bubble gum machine. The glass bubble was half full. I nodded kindly at it and thought ‘See you on the way back, my friend.’ But when I returned the machine was empty. I assumed I had been rumbled and that the shop keeper had removed the loot. Back at school I sought out Ellen and told her that sadly our supply of bubble gums was no longer. She winked at me and cackled, “No I have them.” She told me that she had ran home at lunch time, got a large shopping bag and cleared the machine all in one go. I was stunned. “Give me some”, I said. “No, she replied, “They’re mine now.”

When we were both seventeen, we went up on the train to Dublin for a one day shopping extravaganza. We were like Ivana Trump and Paris Hilton on speed: we managed to get into every single shop on Grafton and O’Connell Street. We didn’t buy anything because we had almost no money but that didn’t slacken our fervour. Ellen warned me at the outset that we weren’t wasting any time stopping for lunch. However, around mid-afternoon; I crumbled and told her that I could not go on unless we ate something. Ellen rolled her eyes and consented to stop for five minutes. We went into a large fast food place on O’Connell Street which thank God no longer exists. We sat down at a table. My legs were killing me. I said, “OK, I’ll go up. What do you want?” Ellen pulling out a tin of tuna and a bread roll from her vast hand bag said, “A can opener.”

In our early twenties, we loved going to night clubs not for the men but to dance. We had no shame, the emptier the dance floor the better. Sometimes we wouldn’t be let in at the door. Ellen would assume her thickest country accent and whine, “But we’re all the way from Fermoy.” It worked every time.

I was chief bridesmaid at her wedding. Ellen’s mother said we were a disgrace in my blood red dress and Ellen, head to toe in dangling pearls and a plunging backless dress. Cork couldn’t contain Ellen: she was outrageous. I miss her.