Amid the crowded din of an Italian restaurant in Surrey, my son pauses from trying to eat his own sick and looks up at his 14 cousins, gathered in front of him all together for the first time in his young life. I spent last week’s column affirming the sincere and everlasting affection I have for my giant family, but meeting them all at once is still a serious undertaking. Aside from storming an embassy, or creating a human chain to get some orphans across a crevasse, very few activities recommend 36 participants, which is what we now total as siblings, partners and kids. Unsurprisingly, the prospect of how he’d react to meeting, cuddling and softly chewing on all 14 of his fellow children filled us with dread, as well as glee.
It’s simply smarter and more humane to drip-feed O’Reillys to a newcomer over time. My wife first met my dad when we’d been going out a few months, with a couple of sisters thrown in. She charmed them immediately and, though a vegetarian, she politely overlooked my dad’s choice to book dinner in a steakhouse, which had carcasses hanging from the ceiling. Dad regards vegetarianism as something between mental illness and mortal sin, so it’s no small achievement that she charmed him so much that night, craning her neck past animal cadavers all the while, that he now maintains a small Quorn annexe in his freezer, just for her.
None of our kids have 10 siblings, so this is the one chance we get to show them just how manic our own childhood was. We watch them from a distance, like photographers on Planet Earth, observing exotic wildlife from a tiny shed covered in shrubs. Invariably we are delighted and appalled to find how closely their dynamics match our own; each child idolising those just above, persecuting those just below, largely ignoring the rest. The babies lack the low cunning of the toddlers, while the oldest act as self-serious protectors and guides.
One exception to this hierarchy is my nephew Donnie, who seems fascinated with his newest baby cousin. Initially I thought my son offered him a glimpse into his ancient ancestry; that ‘Aha!’ moment you get from documentaries about chimps, or reminders from Facebook that you once liked Nick Clegg.
To my disappointment, his dad casts doubt as to whether this was genuine, or a ploy for attention. ‘He knows we reward him when he’s kind, so he behaves this way to achieve that reward,’ my brother Dara reminds me, as his little Machiavelli pelts the boy with kisses and exaggerated ooh and ahhs. ‘It’s pretty intellectually sophisticated, actually.’
As my dad jokily offers my wife some sausage rolls, and the soft hum of children’s laughter blends into sweet white noise, my son sits in silence and sucks his sleeve; he’s taking the pats whether they’re genuine or not. Maybe he’s more cunning than I thought.
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
