My boyfriend is always going on about the cultural differences between us, writes Róisín Ingle
He thinks they account for our occasional lapses in communication. He’s a Prod and I’m not. Buying vast quantities of butterfly cakes from the sales in the Presbyterian hall beside my old house doesn’t count. He grew up in a divided town and I didn’t. The occasional feuds between two rival gangs in Sandymount Green, the Smallies and the Biggies, don’t count, either. Feuds such as "my conkers are bigger than yours". It was tough round our way.
Anyway, he says "gutties" when he means runners. He talks about so-and-so being "lifted" when what he means is that they were arrested. He says "dinner" when he is really on about lunch. He says "tea" when he is talking about dinner.
I’m used to it now. Five years later I should be. When we are in Dublin it’s a constant battle to get him to speak proper, like. I spend half the time trying to get him to say "yes" instead of "aye" and the other half encouraging him not to refer to Catholic churches as chapels. It’s lunch, I insist, not dinner. It’s a soother, I say, not a dummy. And Sinn Féin representatives are not "horned creatures from the dark side"; not all of them, anyway. That kind of thing.
But no matter how hard I might try to take the Portadown out of the boy when he’s in Dublin, whenever I visit the in-laws-in-waiting I become more Nordy than the Nordies themselves. I’m all "Och, look at that wee babby" and "Let’s take a dander down the High Street Mall".
I give it loads of "Aye, I don’t know what the Ports would do without Vinnie Arkins" whenever the subject of the local team comes up. I’ll order sliced-chicken "suppers" from the "chippy" and go "down the town" to get my shopping. In the giant local Tesco I’ll say: "Pardon me, wee fella, but have you got thyme?" They didn’t, as it happened, and the boy I asked looked at his watch first, but I felt I belonged, you know?
At this stage I am fully attuned to the cultural mores of the house my boyfriend grew up in. Beef is known only as meat and must be roasted to within an inch of its life. The washing-up is done the second the meal is finished, pots and everything. I take no part in this madness, usually, and I won’t until a dishwasher – my mother-in-law-in- waiting has a "wee thing" against them – is installed.
The other thing that happens is that I turn into an ice-cream fiend. I can normally take or leave the white stuff, but it’s on tap up there. I blame Mackles, a tiny shop that sells nougat and other essentials, such as incredibly addictive ice cream. You can have it dipped in hot chocolate, covered in wee nuts, doused in bright-red raspberry sauce or all three together. It’s soft and creamy, and you buy it in tubs to eat while watching the telly, breaking the silence only to ask the brother-in-law-in-waiting: "Dave, boy, would you ever go and get us another wee tub of Mackles?" He’ll say "aye", and then, a few minutes later, the whole delicious ritual begins again.
I think I have acclimatised well to life up north. I know what it means when I am sent to the bakery to buy "a few wee buns". They mean chocolate eclairs, coconut fingers and perhaps some muffins, but not as we know them.
When we are coming back to Dublin I declare: "Right, we’re heading away down the road here, so we are." In short, nobody cares any more that in real life I’m a Taig from the capital of debauchery. (Not that they’d ever say Taig, you understand: my in-laws-inwaiting aren’t those kinds of Prods.)
There is just one hurdle I cannot clear. Two words that make me break out in a rash. I’ve scoured the website Speak Norn Iron (http://speaknorniron. 8m.net), but there is no sign of this bizarre expression. I present the two most annoying words in the Nordy language: "That’ll do."
It might seem innocuous, but don’t be fooled. You have a load of Nordy guests for dinner, and, having slaved all day, you let them know about the braised venison, black-truffle creme and wild asparagus you are going to serve. Their response: "That’ll do." Or you’ve just won the lottery and say you’re going to share it with them. Their response: "That’ll do." Or you have discovered the secret of eternal youth and want to let them in on it. "That’ll do," they’ll say, as if they couldn’t care less. "That’ll do. That’ll do grand." Arrrgh. What could they possibly mean? Answers on a wee postcard, please.