The Mulligan Sisters
by Eamann Breen
When we were young, we loved the Mulligan sisters. There were two of them and two of us. If we could have been a pop band we would have been the Supremes, except there were four of us and we were white and two of us were boys. The Mulligan Sisters wanted to marry us and were the same age. A joint wedding was secretly planned. It would save on expense and be much easier to arrange as we would have to elope, since my mother didn’t like the sisters.They were dressed identically, which she claimed was sinister and disturbing.
Everyone at some point must make a choice between their friends and their family. And so it was for me. When I was seven and my brother was nine, my mother needed to attend to my grandmother in the run-up to Christmas. My father was the chauffeur, so Mike was put in charge.
“Take care of your brother,” my mother instructed on the first Saturday in December. “Television for an hour, homework, no cooking, and don’t open the door to anyone.”
Once the parents had departed, we scoured the house for presents and found them unwrapped under the stairs. The good stuff was covered in plastic, but the books and annuals were not. As I entertained myself with the Beano and the first chapter of James and the Giant Peach, Mike inspected the tin of Family Circle biscuits. After five minutes, he was able to remove the sellotape from the lid and revealed the contents. He told me we could have two biscuits each from the bottom tray and explained that by the time my mother opened it, it would be easy to distract her and nobody would notice as long as the top tray was full. I took a chocolate biscuit and a custard cream. Mike replaced the tape, and we were back in front of the television by the time my parents returned. We repeated the exercise for the next four weeks, and by then, the bottom tray was almost empty.
With the excitement on Christmas Day, we forgot all about the biscuit situation. The Mulligan family came as usual to visit on St. Stephens Day for tea and, after turkey sandwiches, mince pies and trifle, my mother produced the Family Circle tin and placed it on the table.
“James, can you open the biscuits and pass them around?” she instructed. My hands shook as I removed the sellotape in one swift movement and everyone helped themselves as I walked around the table. Mike took two shortbreads and winked at me, and I didn’t take any. The next ten minutes were what can only be described as Hitchcockian as the top layer slowly emptied, as Mrs. Mulligan indulged her legendary craving for any food that contained sugar. Just before the final one was taken, my father sent the children into the living room to watch television, as he poured brandy for himself and Mr. Mulligan and cream sherry for the two mothers. By the time the party broke up, it was well past our bedtime. As dutiful and fearful sons, we helped my mother clear the table, and it was only as we started for the stairs that she spoke from the kitchen.
“Who has eaten all of the biscuits? Was it the Mulligans?” I froze on the bottom step.
I panicked and said ‘yes’. Even then I was a people pleaser. Mike just shrugged.
“Those greedy little bitches. They’re not welcome in my house ever again,” she announced in a manner that made it clear that the subject was closed.
I couldn’t sleep that night. The happiness of my future wife had been compromised. The next day outside the front gate, we told the Mulligan sisters the bad news.
“Why can’t we visit your house?” Katy, my future sister-in-law, asked.
“My mother is fatally ill and will probably die,” I answered, amazed at my flair for the dramatic and simultaneously wondering how I could provide a corpse for the funeral. Mike just shrugged, and Bronwen took a packet of Rolos out of her duffle coat and gave one to Mike and two to me. Mike ate his immediately and I held mine in my hand, contemplating the concept of delayed gratification.
The next month or so was filled with strange and guilty pleasures as the news of my mother’s illness slowly trickled around the street and the neighbourhood; Katy Mulligan, I learned, could not keep a secret from her mother. Slowly but surely, we were treated with cakes and buns from well-meaning and polite people. No one mentioned the illness to my mother’s face; they explained the gifts as extra to their own needs. My mother loved the attention but did not relish the expected return of favours. As the winter cold snap started to thaw, it was inevitable that she would be seen more regularly, now in rude health, trudging to the supermarket and numerous other shops and talking to all and sundry as was her manner. At the back of the coal shed one Saturday morning Bronwen said my mother had been sighted arguing with the butcher at the top of the hill.
“Sounds like she’s better,” she said as she held my hand; we were practicing our wedding vows in front of the others.
“Yes,” I said, “she had surgery last week.”
“What kind of surgery?” Katy immediately asked. And quick on my feet I said ‘plastic’. Mike shrugged and, for once, contributed to our downfall.
“It was quite expensive but worth it.” He then smiled and added, “She now has x-ray vision and can see through walls and into people’s souls and can tell if they have lied or eaten too many Family Circle biscuits.” I felt the ground was going, about to open and swallow me up.
“Like a superpower?” Katy asked.
“Yes,” Mike answered, on a roll. “Basically she’s bionic.”
The next two weeks were a flurry of activity as everyone in the street stopped my mother to talk and clandestinely admire her new face, while I counted the days until the truth came out. But as sometimes happens, providence made an appearance: the Mulligans announced they were moving to another part of the town and would transfer to another school. The family had a going-away party, and my mother was given a seat in the lounge under the chandelier and next to the table lamp. Everyone who came remarked how young she looked, and happy. Occasionally from the kitchen someone would shout out, ‘How many biscuits have I eaten?’ to roars of laughter. Thankfully, my mother was too distracted by all the attention and questions on her make-up regime (‘Dove soap and water,’ she proclaimed, ‘if you are interested,’) to understand the joke.
The fickleness of childhood resulted in the Mulligan sisters being forgotten very quickly. When Mike was twenty-four he married Katy, and after they got divorced he then married Bronwen, and after their divorce he married her best friend Ramona — no delayed gratification. My mother didn’t attend any of the weddings, out of principle she said, but the truth was she was not invited. The Mulligan sisters, it transpires, had developed an obsessive dislike of her and both her faces. She continues to tell me I was lucky not to get mixed up with them, but in my heart I always will be, and have not given up the ghost of a late in life elopement.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Eamann Breen (he/him) is an Irish born London based writer and storyteller. His play “Shinaid” was recently broadcast on RTE Radio One (National Irish Radio Station) and was a Druid Theatre Debut at the Galway International Arts Festival. “The Lucky Escape” was part of the 2022 Equity Library New York Winter Festival.
X: @BreenEamann