My friend and I were taking a taxi from Wexford to Rosslare when I got into one of those passive-aggressive phone conversations some of us indulge in with our significant others. I know many of you never resort to the pass-agg thing, and I applaud you for that. Well done. For the rest of us, this particular pass-agg exchange related to a discussion about which person in a relationship often keeps their phone on silent. “It must be fantastic to just switch off from everything, to be the one that nobody bothers calling because they know there won’t be an answer anyway,” I was telling my boyfriend as we drove towards my friend’s mobile home. “I’d love to know what that feels like.”
I had tried calling him three times that day, as had our children, leaving respectable gaps of a couple of hours between each call and only on the fourth time, after I’d made a plea in the family WhatsApp for my calls to be returned, managed to get through. “I think it must have been on silent,” he said, sounding almost surprised, as though somebody else had switched his phone to silent or the phone had mysteriously malfunctioned. “I wonder why you put it on silent?” I said, playing my usual role. We had, after all, been here many times before. “Were you in a church at a funeral? Or in the middle of an important meeting about to clinch a lucrative deal?” I was enjoying myself now. Sort of.
Surprisingly, he was not clinching any deal unless you count buying a small suitcase and foolscap folders for the girls upcoming Irish college trip. Or wandering around a garden centre choosing flowering plants for raised beds. Or spending quality time with his mother, Queenie. He had finally taken the phone off silent while queuing with her for Holy Smokes, an American-style BBQ shack in Portadown which is run, of course it is, by a local Co Armagh churchman, Pastor Tom. My boyfriend was about to eat brisket and short ribs and corn bread with Queenie after a three-hour wait in the queue. Holy smokes, is right.
The taxi driver talked about how when we were growing up, we didn’t have constant access to parental input, which meant we had to figure things out for ourselves and were therefore more capable
When I’d finished my pass-agg tirade, I put down the phone and moaned about this infuriating silent treatment to my friend in the back of the taxi. With his phone turned almost permanently to silent it meant I was the one who got all the calls from our daughters about things that were lost, I was the one fielding anxiety about upcoming events, all the urgent existential issues that can only occur when you are 14. The girls were staying with friends in another part of Rosslare, and I’d already heard from them several times in 24 hours. I heard the taxi driver chuckle. “Mine’s on silent too; same reason,” he said, like a man with a death wish.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour is not just a concert, it’s a love story - and Dublin said yes
Friends, bad singing and Love Actually: Miriam O’Callaghan, James Kavanagh, Marian Keyes and more on their Christmas traditions
Róisín Ingle: I’ve always been a sucker for a dark or sad song set around Christmas
Which of the three Pauls nominated for the Booker prize will win? There’s only one Paul for me
“They can always message me, I look at the messages every now and then,” he qualified, explaining that as a result of his silent treatment his wife is also the one who takes most of the queries from their teenagers. I gave him an earful, obviously. About the inequality of this arrangement. But then he talked about how when we were growing up, we didn’t have constant access to parental input, which meant we had to figure things out for ourselves and were therefore more capable. “More neglected?” I pass-agged. “More resilient?” he countered.
My phone had not been on silent earlier as my friend and I wandered down the charming, bustling streets of Wexford town, browsed the colourful gear in Essee boutique, got crab and smoked salmon in Meyler’s fish shop or bought a cheerful whisk and measuring spoons in Barkers kitchen shop. My phone was not on silent when we had lunch in Green Acres restaurant, monkfish scampi and the most delicious kedgeree I’d ever tasted. I’ve only had it a couple of times but this was magnificent. The British were mad for kedgeree, I told my friend, as I nicked forkfuls from her plate. It’s a mix of fish, spicy rice, ginger and lentils. Apparently, kedgeree put the colonisers in mind of the nursery food they had been served by their nannies in the old country.
I kept my phone on the whole time, of course. Just in case. But back at my friend’s mobile home, getting ready for an afternoon swim, I kept thinking about what the taxi man said. About how we were never able to ring anyone back in the day on a whim, how there was no such thing as parental advice on tap, how that meant we had to figure things out for ourselves. “I’m leaving my phone here,” I told my friend as we got our togs on.
Some of us pass-aggers have inadvertently set up what can only be described as a parental concierge business. One that operates 24/7. It’s neither sustainable nor profitable in the long run
In the sea, I did not think about my phone. I swam out, strong, even strokes, and gave thanks as I always do when I am in the water. After a while, I noticed some young people swimming around 50m away. On closer inspection it turned out two of them were mine. I called their names and we swam towards each other then, a happy coincidence, good timing. No phones needed. We embraced in the water. Had a chat. Swam our separate ways.
I realised something, thinking about all of this. Some of us pass-aggers have inadvertently set up what can only be described as a parental concierge business. One that operates 24/7. It’s neither sustainable nor profitable in the long run. Czech writer Milan Kundera did not write about The Unbearable Lightness of Keeping Your Phone on Silent but he might have if they’d been around in his day. There can be joy in the silent treatment, in the temporary lull, in keeping occasionally out of reach. Kedgeree is amazing but spoon-feeding people nursery food, however delicious, is not always the best long-term plan. Holy smokes. I think I finally get it now.