We present another story from the RTÉ Short Story Competition shortlist 2025 - read Auntie and Anto and Ivy and Ava by Ian Feighery below, and listen to the story read by Ebby O'Toole-Acheampong above.
Mam is hugging Auntie Ciara in the sitting room, making the same sort of sounds she makes when she's trying to get Ava to calm down. Auntie Ciara jumps back when she sees me and gives me a sniffly, no-makeup smile.
"There’s my rocker chick," she says. "I was thinking we go round the shops, maybe get some burgers and milkshakes? A girly-girl day. What do you think?"
"Sounds brilliant," I say.
"Well, you’re paying, so bring your purse."
I run back up to my room for my shoulder bag and the denim jacket Auntie Ciara gave me for my ninth birthday. I haven't worn the jacket since the sleepover and putting it on gives me a funny feeling in my belly.
Dad catches me on my way back downstairs and puts €20 in my bag.
"You pay for lunch, alright?" he says quietly.
I roll my eyes. "Dad, Auntie Ciara wasn’t actually being serious about me paying."
"Well, maybe get your big sister a teddy or something in the shops. She doesn’t get to go out for girly days like you."
"Ava won’t like a new teddy," I say as we go down. "She only likes Noo-Noo."
Mam makes me say goodbye to Ava before I leave. Ava is on the couch watching Bluey on her tablet with her big headphones on. She flaps Noo-Noo the stripey rabbit teddy in my face and screeches like she always does when she wants to be left alone. Noo-Noo's black eyes watch me leave, reminding me that he knows what I did.
Auntie Ciara hands over her phone when we get into her car. Mam and Dad don’t like giving me their phones. Mam's always scrolling Instagram and Dad watches Formula One clips. They say I’ve too much screentime, but I say I’m only allowed my tablet for an hour after dinner, meanwhile Ava is on hers from the moment she gets home from her school. Dad tells me not to be cheeky. Ava is a year older, he says.
"Let’s start with a bit of Samantha Mumba, eh?" Auntie Ciara says as she pulls out of the drive.
I open our playlist: 'Ivy and Ciara’s Car Jamz’. Auntie Ciara likes to tell me she is educating me with her favourite music from long ago like the Spice Girls and I say I’m educating her with music from the 21st century, like Chappell Roan.
I feel better now, like I usually do when I’m with Auntie Ciara. We sing along to the music and laugh when we hear bad words. Mam only lets me play the kiddy versions in her car and I never tell her I listen to the real, naughty versions with Auntie Ciara.
We dance in our seats and sing like we’re at a concert and we zoom by the church. The church is my landmark on the way home to put on Whitney Houston. I always save Whitney for very last because we both try and reach the high notes but we just end up snorting laughing like happy piggies.
There’s a little ‘blip’ noise and the phone lights up.
"Who’s that from? It’s not --"
Auntie Ciara looks down at her phone in my hand and then swerves quickly after nearly crashing into the car beside us. The driver presses on his horn for a long time and Auntie Ciara says bad words under her breath.
"It’s from your friend Rachel," I say, looking at the notification. "The first word is the F word and then ‘him’."
"Sure that’s everyone’s reaction to--"
She trails off and we reach a shopping centre after a few minutes, where she says, "It has the big Penneys you love. And that restaurant with the strawberry milkshakes I love."
We spend a while walking around the shops. Auntie Ciara follows behind me, recording voicenotes to Rachel all about Anto. There’s a twist in my stomach again as I think about the sleepover and the broken glass and the bad words and the slammed door.
We go to the restaurant and when we order drinks, the waitress tells us sorry, the milkshake machine is broken.
"Ah, sugar," says Auntie Ciara. "The one thing I was looking forward to. Just a Coke then, please."
"And a Coke for me," I say, for a laugh.
"Don’t push it, Ivy," says Auntie Ciara. She doesn’t say this in her usually jokey way, and it makes my heart jump. "Just an orange squash for her, thanks."
As we wait for our burgers and chips, I look at Auntie Ciara frowning as she types on her phone. When Ava has her mood swings, Mam says she is ‘all over the place’. Auntie Ciara is all over the place today, even more than I am.
"Sorry, rocker chick," Auntie Ciara says, putting her phone face-down on the table. "I’m not being fair. This is our girly-girl day."
Then she says the thing I've been waiting for: "You’ve heard about Anto then, from your mam?"
by Ian Feighery for Late Date on RTÉ Radio 1
"You broke up," I say, like a half-question, but then it's quiet.
The waitress puts the Coke and squash in front of us and leaves. I can’t think of anything good to say next.
"What happened exactly with Anto?" I force myself to ask when the food comes.
Auntie Ciara chews on a chip and has the face that adults have when they are deciding how much truth to tell. She shrugs.
"I guess I wanted an Ivy of my own. Or an Ivan, I suppose, if it was a boy."
"You could end up with an Ava," I say, realising too late that this is a mean thing to say.
"Yeah, I suppose," says Auntie Ciara, not noticing. "But Anto didn’t really want an Ivy or an Ivan or an Ava. That was part of it, anyway."
Before I can stop, I burst into tears and, quick as anything, Auntie Ciara is beside me, scooping me into her side.
"Hey, hey, hey. What’s wrong, rocker chick?"
"My fault.... the sleepover.... Ava."
The words can’t come out because in my head, it’s two weeks ago and Dad is driving us to Auntie Ciara’s apartment before he and Mam go to the wedding. It’s my fourth time sleeping over in her apartment but it’s Ava’s first ever sleepover. We can’t have loud music in the apartment this time and we will have to keep the Disney film on low.
We’re all in her kitchen making homemade pizzas. I tell Auntie Ciara that I have an Aunt-ie and an Ant-o and she smiles. She spreads tomato on Ava’s base and nudges Anto.
"Auntie and Anto," he repeats, sprinkling grated mozzarella into his mouth with his bony fingers. "Auntie and Anto and Ivy and Ava."
It’s then when all of us are smiling and joking that Ava flings her uncooked pizza onto the ground.
"Not to worry," Auntie Ciara sings, but Ava gets worse. She throws a plate and it smashes the glass door of the oven into a million pieces.
"Jesus Christ!" Anto shouts, louder even than the crash.
"You can’t shout," Auntie Ciara says. She is good at being fake-calm when Ava gets like this, just like Mam. "And don’t say bad words in front of the girls."
Anto goes over to hold Ava’s hands back, but she screeches and punches him in the privates.
"Fuuuuck!" he screams. "She’s just after kneading me in the fucking balls!"
He storms out, shouting more bad words, slamming the apartment door behind him. Auntie Ciara asks me what will calm Ava down and I say only Noo-Noo, her teddy. We pull out everything from our overnight bags and then everything else around the apartment, but he can’t be found, and Ava gets worse and worse. Auntie Ciara is worried about the screaming and the neighbours and the broken glass and plates everywhere, so she finally calls Mam.
Mam in her perfumy dress and Dad in his suit collect us in a taxi. Mam has brought the spare Noo-Noo and it calms Ava down a bit, even though I can tell that Ava knows he’s not the real Noo-Noo. In the taxi, Mam blames Dad for not triple-checking that Noo-Noo was in the overnight bags. Dad sighs and makes his tie loose when we're back in our kitchen. I am about to tell him the truth, but then he kisses the top of my head and says to go to bed and no reading.
I sit on the second-top stair and listen to Mam apologising to Auntie Ciara on the phone, telling her not to worry and the wedding wasn’t great anyway and that she will come and help tidy the apartment tomorrow and it was a silly idea of theirs anyway and what were her and Dad thinking really.
I can’t calm down enough to talk about it all in the restaurant. Auntie Ciara tells me not to worry and just enjoy my lunch.
We finish the meal in silence, and I ask if we can go to the discount shop so I can get something for Ava. I tell Auntie Ciara I can use the self-checkout by myself, so she says she’ll meet me at the shop's exit.
I pick out a Bluey book for Ava that she’ll probably throw on the floor. Then I stop by the fridges, looking at the rows of colourful bottles. I see the lines of Cokes and think about Auntie Ciara giving out to me in the restaurant for trying to order one. I take a different bottle from the fridge which I can just about reach and do the checkout as quickly as I can, feeding the machine the €20. I shove the bottle inside my shoulder bag along with the change and show Auntie Ciara Ava’s book as we get into the car.
"You’re a good sister," she says. "You’d’ve made a good cousin if I had had a kid with Anto."
"You can have a kid with someone else," I say, not fully sure if this is true. "Or you can always adopt me!"
I mean it as a joke, but Auntie Ciara sounds angry.
"Ivy! Don’t you ever say that. Your parents love you very much."
I feel tears as we pull out of the carpark. Auntie Ciara is telling me things I already know, like how just because Ava takes up a lot of their time, my mam and dad are doing their best for me too. She’s explaining things like I’m a baby.
The phone in her handbag at my feet is buzzing every few seconds and it’s the only noise inside the car as we drive past the church.
I want to explain myself, say it was just a joke. I want to tell the full truth about what happened at the sleepover, but Auntie Ciara is pulling up outside the house and I’ve missed all my chances. Before I get out of the car, I move the bottle I bought in the shop from my bag into hers without her seeing. I’m nearly at the front door when I hear the car door opening and she scoops me up, up, up into a hug.
"I'm sorry about today," she whispers, her voice melting like chocolate in my ear. "Love you, rocker chick."
Dad opens the front door, Ava’s arms and legs all coiled around with his. He gives Auntie Ciara a wave as she reverses out.
I think about how pretty she looks even without makeup, about our playlist and Whitney Houston, about the call I overheard from the second-top stair, about the bottle of discount-shop strawberry milkshake I just put in her handbag, about Noo-Noo looking back at me with beetle-black eyes as I’m hiding him in our kitchen press before the sleepover.
I give Auntie Ciara one last wave, then I turn around to Ava to show her the book I bought her.
I give my sister the biggest smile I can.
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About The Author: Ian Feighery is from Templeogue, Dublin, where he now lives with his husband. He works as a primary school teacher in Tallaght and holds an MA in Children's and Young Adult Literature from DCU. Ian writes with the PiCWiTs, a creative writing group of practising and retired teachers in Drumcondra Education Centre. This is his first published story.
Hear Ian talking about his story on Arena here
Listen to the RTÉ Short Story Competition 2025 stories nightly on Late Date from Monday 13th October (full broadcast schedule here). Tune into Arena for interviews and updates, and join us for the live Arena/RTÉ Short Story finale in the Pavilion Theatre in Dún Laoghaire on Friday 24th October - tickets are on sale here.
