Bo asked, how many of these pills should I take?
I didn’t have my glasses – where were they? Not there. I snapped at him, told him to read the label himself. I got irritated when Bo forgot that I couldn’t read without glasses – it had been several years since I could do that.
Rather impatiently, he had a look at it. Three once a day, he said.
I was surprised and said, that’s unusual, isn’t it?
I was standing at my dressing table, maybe brushing my hair, and Bo was in bed. The room was rather dark, although it was now about noon. He popped three pills into his mouth impatiently and swallowed them, without water. I was alarmed. I ran downstairs, found my glasses, came back up and read the label.
‘It says one three times a day!’ I said. ‘How could you have been so bloody stupid?’
I ran downstairs again. Why? There is a phone by our bed. I suppose I ran down to get the telephone directory, which is in the hall beside the main phone. In the bright big kitchen, I phoned the surgery and explained to the receptionist what had happened. She put me through to the doctor. Thank goodness he is still there, I was thinking. I was still in ordinary time, where doctors leave the surgery at some particular time on the clock, where the time on the clock matters. He said he would phone the hospital, and ring back. He rang back quite quickly.
‘It’s not a toxic dose,’ he said. ‘If it is a toxic dose, you could take him to the hospital and get an antidote. But it will probably be all right. If he gets sick, take him to the hospital.’
But what does ‘if he gets sick’ really mean? Did I really take this in? No. Why didn’t I ask him, ‘What do you mean, sick?’ Why didn’t I say, ‘Well, let’s play safe?’ I know why. I was busy. I had stuff to do, commitments, I wasn’t about to let people down – the writer of the children’s book, the organisers of the concert. I didn’t want to go to the hospital and I was relieved this wasn’t necessary.
I read the leaflet that came with the pills. (For some reason, the name of the pills reminded me of Chaucer, and ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’, one of Bo’s favourites, came to mind. It is a story about poison, and the impossibility of cheating fate, or ‘that traytour, Deeth’. ‘See ye that ook?’ is the line that popped into my mind. Under the oak tree, death awaits.) Side effects included vomiting and diarrhoea. But of course they are side effects to many pills. They are the possible side effects of almost every pill Bo takes – five or six different tablets every day.
Bo felt okay. He ate some lunch, drank some tea. I telephoned our son Olaf, and told him Bo wasn’t well and that I had to go out. He asked when I had to go. Five o’clock. I won’t be home until late, maybe midnight.
We were still at the stage where time mattered. Little bits of time; events that would soon seem unspeakably trivial still mattered. We were in ordinary time, the place where we live, when it mattered whether Olaf would have time to get back to his flat that night. When it mattered that I would have time to get my hair blow-dried, to buy sweets for Halloween callers. We were still in ordinary time, the clock ticking, the diary full of appointments, each prefi xed by its time. Launch 6.30 p.m. (or should that be 7?). Concert 7.30 p.m. (but you can arrive at the interval, i.e. 9). Hairdresser 2.30 p.m.
I went to my hairdresser, then to Tesco where I bought lots of bags of sweets for the trick or treaters. At ten to five, Olaf was on the doorstep.
‘Not sure what Bo will eat,’ I said.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll do something.’
Olaf is very quiet, and does not use words lightly. He is totally reliable, very, very kind. Many times, I have called on him to stay with Bo, while I am out doing something. He and Nadezhda, his partner (now wife), have always come. For an evening, for a weekend. She comes all smiles, he comes silently, they never complain or fuss. I had no qualms about saying goodbye to Bo. By now we were very friendly again. Bo was tired and a bit queasy but none of the terrible side effects had occurred. I guessed he would be all right in a day or two.
‘Drink a lot of water,’ I said.
Did I kiss him goodbye? Maybe.
Somehow I thought water would dilute the impact of the pills. I had read that they were slow release so I was still a bit worried.
I headed off. The launch was great – a very enthusiastic event, for Brenda, who had a huge circle of friends and family. It was her first book, people had been hearing about it for a long time, and were delighted that it had come to fruition. Her daughter had composed a piece of music for the occasion, which she played on the harp. I gave my talk, about Samhain. This is the night when the dead and the fairies come out to wander on earth. It is a dangerous night, when the dead walk the earth and you may meet a ghost. It is also the season of storytelling …
All this, I said, and much more, and everyone clapped, and told me it was wonderful.
I grabbed a few sandwiches – how lucky there is food, I said, to Kelly Fitzgerald, who had introduced me to Brenda, but who was also rushing to Liberty Hall and the concert.
Liberty Hall was packed with people. I crept into the back of the balcony and listened to what remained of the first half of the concert. Many brilliant traditional musicians and singers. Vincent Woods and Doireann Ní Bhriain were introducing it, with a mixture of warmth and professionalism. I was impressed by their ability to come up with some appropriate, often witty, comment, after every performance.
At the interval, I tried to find the green room. As I wandered around the foyer, I met some people from the audience – Maj O Catháin, for instance, who asked if Bo was there.
‘He’s not feeling very well,’ I said, lightly, realising that it sounded like a white lie.
Eventually I went backstage, where a festive atmosphere prevailed – bottles of beer and wine, many young people running around, waiting to go on or off. The buzz was infectious. I remembered how it felt, putting on plays, which I had done long ago in the 1990s. The excitement of the theatre, the sense of purpose, of total commitment to the show, the pleasurable pressure of all that. I found myself, though, left alone in a dressing room, and I wondered where everyone was – I didn’t realise there were several dressing rooms and I had landed in the first, outer one. I read over my script, made some last-minute revisions, as I always do.
I phoned Olaf from the green room. Bo was feeling ‘a bit queasy’, he said, using a phrase that would be repeated several times over the next week. He had eaten some supper but vomited it up.
(‘If he gets sick take him to the hospital.’)
Now he was asleep. Too preoccupied to feel more than mildly uneasy, I told Olaf to go home, that everything would be all right.
Eventually, at 10.30, it was my turn – I had been preceded by the Swords Mummers, so colourful and otherworldly in their magnificent straw costumes. Vincent said a few words about the Urban Folklore Project, introduced me, and I stood at the podium and delivered my brief talk. I could not see the audience – the auditorium was black, and I was flooded in light. But they laughed at my jokes and I got that sense of rapport you can get, from the stage. I introduced my first recording, which was of Lyrics Murphy, a man I collected from in Ringsend – by coincidence, I had first met Lyrics on another Halloween night, long ago in 1979. I gave a rather full introduction to this astonishing man, who had been passionately interested in his home, Ringsend, and had under his own steam documented some of its lore, especially its vast range of nicknames. I had been instructed to nod to the light box up at the back to give them to cue to play the recording.
‘And now we’ll listen to Lyrics Murphy,’ I said and raised my head and hand to the box. ‘Talking about nicknames in Ringsend.’
The voice of a woman, from Black Pitts, describing midwives and childbirth, flooded the vast theatre.
Another glitch.
The audience didn’t seem to mind. Once they realised what was happening, they listened to Rosanna O’Reilly – who was colourful and hilarious – and gave themselves to the moment. I apologised, although it w
as not my fault – or was it? I should have insisted on a rehearsal. But how could I have done that? Where would I have got the time, on that hectic day? I should have come home from Donegal earlier. But. But. Many ifs and buts.
As soon as I was finished, feeling deflated – because no matter how minor a glitch is, it is deflating, and one feels like an idiot, and one wishes it hadn’t happened – I dashed across to Tara Street DART station to catch the train home. I just missed one, and had to wait for almost half an hour – this long wait always feels like an eternity at that hour of the night. When the train came, it was a two-carriage train. Drat, I thought, now I probably won’t even get a seat. But I did.
I sat in the corner, opposite a tall man with a head of curly grey hair. He looked rather thespian, like a Shakespearian actor. Although I was very tired, I opened my Kindle and began to read – I have many books on my Kindle and I chose a short story by Margaret Drabble, a comfort read for me, since I knew this would pass the time easily, and absorb me just enough to keep me interested on the trip home. The train journey from the city centre to Shankill takes about forty minutes, which is long enough, especially if you’ve been waiting for half an hour for the train. At night it always feels much longer.
After a while the man opposite spoke.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in a refined voice. A bit Englishy. ‘Is that a Kindle?’
I confirmed that it was.
We conversed for the rest of the journey home. I had a moment’s hesitation – I knew I could return to my reading and he would respect that. But I decided he was not a dangerous man who was planning to rob/rape/murder me as soon as I got off the train. Also, he was educated. He knew something about literature – he had been a friend of Francis Stuart and advised me to read all of his work. I have read Black List, Section H, more than once, and liked it, but had a hazy memory of it.
The man was still on the train when I got off, so I guessed he lived in Bray, and wondered who he was. I thought, we may see him at the Mermaid – Bo and I sometimes went to the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray on Monday nights, when they show a movie, from some group called European Film Art. We always met people we know, on those Monday nights, which we enjoyed very much. We’d been there just a few weeks before, although the last movie we had seen was Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, in the cinema in Dún Laoghaire. We never missed a Woody Allen movie.
When I got home, it was after midnight. Bo was asleep and didn’t wake when I slipped into bed beside him. It was nice and warm there, as always, and I curled up safely and fell asleep.
DAY 3
‘Yesterday’
Bo’s flat was L-shaped. The foot of the L had big windows at both ends, so got plenty of light. There was a kitchen at one end, and a sitting area with a fireplace at the other. In the leg of the L was the rest of the sitting room, where the blue sofa was. The wall facing the sofa was shelved from floor to ceiling and full of books. Two bedrooms, the bigger one of which was the ‘library’, also filled from floor to ceiling with books, and had a large handsome desk in the middle. Bo’s typewriter, his containers for pens and pencils and paper clips and things, neatly arranged. An Anglepoise lamp. The smaller bedroom was his bedroom. It contained a single bed. All the rooms had windows so the flat was bright. Somehow it seemed too small nevertheless, but that was probably owing to the books that filled every spare bit of wall. Any bit of wall you could see was painted white. There was a blue carpet and deep ochre-coloured curtains. Bo had chosen the carpet and the curtains himself and they reflected his taste: he liked blue, deep yellow ochre, terracotta. At this time, I assumed he had very definite tastes, knew exactly how to choose furniture and everything else. He was the professor; he had knowledge and authority. Although he was reserved, and sometimes said he was shy, he was one of the most lively, confident, and vivacious people I had ever known and he was never at a loss for words.
*
I didn’t feel like going in to work the next morning. Both Bo and I were in holiday mood: we had moved into a new time zone, the time of love, where the clock, that governed life in the library, in work, had no role to play. We’d moved into a mood that transcended time.
Besides, I was dressed in my fine frock and jacket. It was not unusual to dress well in the National Library – actually, it was expected – but in this new frock I would feel over the top. Also, the thought of travelling in from Booterstown frightened me. What if I met a colleague on the bus? Several of the librarians lived along the coast in south Dublin. Everyone knew I lived in Rathmines and would smell a rat if they spotted me on a bus from Blackrock. Everyone in the world was watching me and judging me.
Sex with Bo was different from anything I had experienced before. He was patient, and amused, and generous. Unlike anyone I had ever met, unlike me, he regarded sex as perfectly normal and natural. Nobody who had been brought up in Ireland during the 1960s could possibly be without sexual hang-ups. Any sex education that existed was designed to terrify you. No doubt some people managed to ignore the dire warnings, to grow up unscathed, although one wonders how they could manage this. But biddable people, good learners, good students, are influenced by what they are taught. Messages were mixed in the 1970s. We knew Philip Larkin’s poem about the sexual revolution:
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the ‘Chatterley’ ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.
Sexual intercourse didn’t begin in Ireland in 1963, however, and attitudes were very muddled.
For Bo, sex was a pleasure to which anyone was entitled if they wanted it, like food or drink or walking in the woods. It was a normal part of any loving relationship. I had been trained in celibacy, and in the expectation that loving relationships with men could be maintained, for years, without sexual intercourse. Probably many marriages in Ireland avoided it too. In the absence of contraception, abstinence was the only real form of birth control. What a country! The rules of the tribe were absorbed from the rules of Catholicism. Patriarchal, puritanical and in many instances simply daft, they were translated into iron conventions and taboos, and into the law of the land.
Sexual intercourse was not the only sort of communication that was severely restricted in Ireland in 1978. Telephone connections were also limited, although not, of course, illegal. Bo had applied for a telephone when he bought his apartment but the waiting list was three years’ long. So he wouldn’t get a phone until 1981, at the earliest. He had a telephone at work. If he needed to make a phone call when the department was closed he had to make do with the public telephone box. These green and cream boxes were situated here and there around the city. There was one halfway down Booterstown Avenue where the pub and the shops were, and there was a phone in the hall of the pub. The phones were coin phones: you inserted some money – sixpence for a local call – into a slot, dialled the number. When someone answered the call, you pressed Button A, and then they could hear you. The call lasted for five minutes and then you had to top it up with another sixpence.
If nobody answered your call, you could press Button B, and your money would be returned, rattling noisily into a little black steel pocket.
Often, the buttons got stuck and neither Button A nor Button B worked.
I decided to call the library, and tell them I was not feeling well and was taking a half-day. The regulation was that you had to call in sick on the morning of your sick leave, which was reasonable if you had a phone in your house, but difficult if you didn’t have one. Of course if, as in this case, you weren’t actually sick, it wasn’t a huge imposition to run out and make the call from the coin box. The one on Booterstown Avenue wasn’t broken. I got through to Maurice, who was understanding.
I had breakfast with Bo in the breakfast nook. He had instant coffee, and sliced pan.
‘Would you like an egg?’
No.
‘Cornflakes?’
No.
‘I usually eat toast.’
He didn’t have a toaster, but he made toast on the grill on the electric stove.
He seemed younger now, in the morning, moving around the little kitchen, which was too small for him. It was not that he was such a big man. Six foot – taller than many Irishmen but not outrageously tall. And he was slender enough, eighty-two kilos, just the right weight for his height, according to himself. But he was a man who seemed bigger than he was. His voice was big and round and deep. His character filled up spaces, and needed lots of room. In big rooms with high ceilings, he seemed to fit comfortably. In this kitchen in a small flat in Booterstown, he looked like a giant in a doll’s house.
Our conversation risked being awkward, now that the evening was over. Before, when we had talked together we were discussing my thesis, or he was telling me about something he had read, advising me to read this or read that. We weren’t used to small talk and I wasn’t used to taking the initiative in conversation. My habit was to let other people do the talking and I would respond. The glow of the sunshine and our post-coital intimacy kept the conversation from being strained, but only just.
After breakfast, I decided to return home, to change and go to work in the afternoon.
He hugged me tightly.
‘When will you come back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How about this evening?’
His eyes sparkled and he smiled broadly.
Yes.
DAY 11,992
All Saints’ Day
Twelve Thousand Days Page 8