Page 90 of Good Sisters

‘Ah, Irlanda.’ They all smiled.

I smiled back. Silence. I looked at Dad, still frozen. Right, small-talk, my alleged forte.

‘So what do you do?’ I asked.

‘We farm the olives,’ Marco said.

‘Oh, you have olive farms? How fantastic. I love olives. Well, I like green ones, not the black ones so much. Actually, do they grow on different trees?’ I sounded like a total idiot but I ploughed on. Queen of small-talk.

The three men laughed.

Marco said, ‘No, eet ees the same tree but the green olives are the first ones you are picking and then if you want black ones you are waiting until later to pick.’

‘Oh, I see, so the black ones are riper?’

‘What is riper?’ the tall one asked.

God, this was painful, I really didn’t give a toss about olives.

‘Dad,’ I glared at him, ‘feel free to jump in.’

Dad cleared his throat and started babbling. ‘I don’t like olives. My wife used to love them. She tried for years, decades actually, to persuade me they were nice, but I just can’t stomach them. She’d try to hide them in casseroles, but I always found them and picked them out. The black ones have a very strong taste in my opinion …’

He was worse than me. I had to stop his crazy rambling.

This was not working. Sod it, it was time to get my sisters involved.

‘Why don’t I introduce you to my sisters and they can explain what “riper” means?’

I invited the men to join our table, which they willingly did.

I introduced my sisters. They told us their names. Tall man was Lorenzo and middle-sized man was Tommaso.

‘Louise, could you please explain what “riper” means?’ I asked.

‘What are you talking about?’ She scowled at me.

I was getting fed up with being dismissed, especially as I had succeeded in doing what I had been ordered to do – make small-talk and bring them over – while Dad had failed. Glaring at my sister, I said, ‘We were chatting, as you do, about these men’s olive farms and they were saying they pick the black olives later in the season. I said, “So the black ones are riper,” and they didn’t understand the word. I thought with you being in Mensa and all, you could explain it. You know, get involved in the conversation that I started.’

Julie, sensing the tension, jumped in. ‘“Riper” means that you wait until the fruit – actually, hang on, is an olive a fruit?’

‘Yes,’ Louise hissed.

‘Oh, that’s funny, I always thought of it as a veggie. Anyway, “ripe” means it’s ready to pick, and the fruit you pick later on in the season is riper.’

‘Yes, yes.’ Lorenzo nodded. ‘The black olive is riper.’

We all smiled and nodded, except Louise, who looked like she wanted to kill someone.

‘Louisa, why you look so angry?’ Tommaso asked.

Louise frowned, making her look even crosser. ‘I’m not. I’m perfectly relaxed.’

The men all cracked up, laughing.

‘You Irish, you supposed to be smiling, happy, drinking Guinness …’ Lorenzo said.

‘We’re not all drunk leprechauns,’ Louise huffed.

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