by Elske Rahill
Mammy kisses Mimi, and kneels down beside the chair, petting Mimi’s hand. ‘Hello, Grandma,’ she says.
‘Have they guns?’
Mammy turns back and looks at Denise. In her pocket, Denise is passing each piece of pasta through her fingers, counting one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, on account of that’s the pattern she has made. Three/four time is harder than four/four, but once she played a waltz that went one-two-three, one-two-three, and she was very good at it and Mo said, ‘Well done!’ and, ‘Great girl, Denise! You are a talented little girl!’
Mammy pushes Denise’s hair back off her face and swallows, and when she speaks again there is a cheep-cheep sound behind her voice. ‘Who, Grandma? No guns.’
‘Kat’s not here and Dada neither, but I’ve cleaned the gun very well with Vaseline; it’s in the chimney.’
‘No, no, Grandma. Just freshening up the good room. We’re just… there’s a new carpet going down, that’s all. Nothing to worry about…’
‘Are you sure, darling?’
‘I’m sure, Grandma. Now what did you want me for?’
‘Pass me my handbag, darling.’
Denise drops herself onto Mammy’s back, her arms hanging over Mammy’s shoulders, and cosies her head into the back of her neck.
‘Get off me, Denise, good girl. You’re too heavy.’
Mammy puts the handbag on Mimi’s lap. Mimi slowly opens it and looks inside. She takes out her big purse that is all soft like the bellies of puppies.
‘Look at this,’ she says, and she pulls it open. ‘Not a penny, Cara. I am so sorry my darling, I don’t want you to be short, but could you give me something for my purse?’
‘Of course, Grandma. Let’s see what I have.’
Mammy takes some brown notes out from the back pocket of her jeans. She helps Mimi to straighten them out and slide them into the purse. ‘Now,’ says Mammy, ‘is that better, Grandma?’
‘Yes, thank you, darling. Did you ever? Wouldn’t you be ashamed, asking for money like that?’
‘No, Grandma, no shame. Now you mind your handbag, okay?’
‘Yes, I’ll do that, darling. Thank you, darling. I will pay you back, you know. I just need to speak to Eileen and tell her to get me some money. She has the card…’
‘Don’t worry, Grandma. It’s no problem.’
‘There’s a letter in my handbag, darling. Take it out, will you?’
‘This one?’ says Mammy.
‘Yes. Sort that out, will you, darling? Read it at home and sort it out. I am old, I think. The problem is I am old.’
‘Okay. Grandma, I’m sorry, I have to drop Denise to music class. I’ll come back, okay? I’ll be back in an hour and a half, maybe two hours. No more than two hours…’
Denise takes the amazing-and-beautiful-and-perfect necklace from her pocket. She makes a bowl for it with her two hands and holds it up for Mimi to see. She opens her mouth to say ‘Here, Mimi,’ but then she can’t speak on account of Mimi’s face.
‘Denise has made you a beautiful necklace, Grandma!’ says Mammy. But Mimi still doesn’t smile. Denise pushes the necklace a bit closer. Mimi looks down with her eyes and not her face. Denise can see into the holes in her nose: hair, and white snots.
‘I see,’ she says.
‘What do you think, Grandma? What do you think of the beautiful necklace that Denise made for you?’
Then Mimi looks like she has had a big, big fright – like as if there was a big noise or something – and her head comes up and she stares at Denise’s Mammy like she is frightened and in trouble, and she says, ‘What do I think?’
‘Yes, Grandma, what do you think of the lovely necklace that Denise made for you in school?’
‘Well…’ says Mimi, ‘it’s not mine. Is it that someone is trying to profit from me? Aoife says someone is trying to profit from me…’
‘No, Grandma, no, no. Denise has made a beautiful necklace for you. What do you think?’
There is a big quiet and Mimi looks at the necklace for a long time, and then she looks all around her, and then at Mammy, but not at Denise. Mammy rubs her hand up and down Denise’s back, and squeezes her shoulder, and there is a big balloon blowing bigger in Denise’s chest and making her throat sore. Then, after a long time, Mimi turns to Mammy and says, ‘I think you should find a bin somewhere and throw it in.’ She flaps her hand for Denise to take the amazing-and-beautiful necklace away.
29
CRUMBS OF ANCIENT LEAVES thick on the polished concrete. A bright smell of mould coats her nostrils and tickles the back of her mouth. Valerie is too awkward for this space – her loose hair, her loud, dirty breath. The squeak of her shoes cuts into the mossy, hermit coldness.
As a child, she saw Grandad’s studio only on rare and illicit occasions, and only with Freya there for courage. They snuck in during Grandad’s tea break, or while he was entertaining guests. Even then, they stayed only briefly, never touching the canvases or paints, careful to leave no trace of themselves.
The first room, where Grandad used to work, comprises two walls of unpainted breezeblock, two walls of glass and a sloping roof with big skylights in it. To her memory it was always filled with very pale, surgical light. Now, the dim September bears in like a threat, and brown leaves suck hungrily at the glass overhead. She never liked it in here; the oily rags and the half-fleshed faces, the bare stool and the chaise longue for positioning models, bottles of turpentine and tattered drawings. There was something sinister and too functional about it, like a taxidermist’s lair. Her mother has switched on the small lamp in Grandad’s ‘office’ – which is really three plyboard walls erected around a big sink, with little square shelves built above it, a cupboard beneath, and a chair where Grandma sat to mix pigment powders for him and arrange his tubes of paint according to a system no one else understood. There were once many old, forensically detailed Renaissance prints hanging there, and newspaper clippings stuck on with tacks. Most of them are gone now.
Beyond the studio is a darker room with bars on the windows and a complex locking system on the door. That’s where Valerie’s mum emerges from now, struggling with a large, unframed canvas, her face flushing purple-red with the effort.
‘The henhouse stinks,’ says Valerie, though she didn’t expect to say that, and her voice sounds big and contrived now in all the empty space, as on a theatre stage. ‘It needs to be cleaned out…’
‘Yes. Well we might just get someone in to dismantle it. No one keeps hens anymore, not so close to the city. I doubt Grandma even has planning permission…’
‘She was wondering where you were.’
‘There’s a lovely fur coat in the cloakroom, Valerie. You should take it back with you to London for the winter… Grandma won’t be wearing it again.’
Valerie grasps the upper edge of the painting. ‘Oh for goodness sake, Valerie,’ says her mum, jerking away from her, ‘don’t be a ninny-hammer. Get some gloves on before you handle the canvas.’ As she says the word ‘canvas’, it slides from her latex grip and topples face down on the floor with an unceremonious pat. ‘Shit Valerie! Now look what you’ve done! Go to the cupboard and get yourself some gloves.’ She kneels suddenly and tilts her head.
Stretching a latex glove over one hand, Valerie squats beside her.
‘Oh Daddy,’ says her mum, looking dreamily at the underside of the canvas.
An eerie portrait of a girl. She looks far away, or under water, with enormous, searching eyes. Or is it two faces? A ghost face over a living one? Her features are a clash of delicate brushstrokes and thick valleys where a second, cleaner outline has been scraped into the paint, right down to the stained canvas.
The lips are lightly touching, the eyes too frank, trying to see out at them from another world.
Mum’s voice catches at the back of her throat. ‘Look at that!’ she says, ‘Oh Daddy…’ Then, with a frown, ‘Go on, Valerie – put on the other glove there and help me to wrap this…’ And, as an af
terthought, ‘That will increase the value, I think. I think so… can’t do any harm.’
*
When they have wrapped five paintings and packed them into the car, Valerie and Aoife return to find the carer sitting in the TV room with a book.
‘Well, Aoife,’ says Grandma. She nods politely at Valerie, her lips pursed. ‘Hello.’
‘We have some private business to arrange,’ says Valerie’s mum, ‘so, Polina, maybe you’d like to give us a moment?’
‘Of course,’ says Polina. ‘But Aoife, could I speak with you for a moment, in the hall…’
Mum rolls her eyes. With a sigh, she drops a large brown envelope on the kitchen table and marches out to the hallway saying, ‘What is it then, Polina, I don’t have much time…’
Valerie stands with her back to the TV. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Grandma?’
‘I don’t know, darling, what do you think?’
‘Well, or coffee? I’ll make us some coffee, will I?’
‘You could. And make a cup for the nice girl as well, will you please?’
‘Sure.’
‘Lovely girl.’
While the kettle boils, Valerie sets four mugs on the table and puts one of her grandma’s coffee filters on top of each. She glances at the door and, very quietly, she lifts the edge of the envelope and pulls out the contents – a small wad of white A4 pages with the letterhead ‘Dunlin & Son Solicitors.’
The kettle lid shudders violently, the water spitting from the spout – she didn’t close it properly. She whacks the lid down quickly; the switch flicks off and the boiling subsides.
Valerie slides the papers back into the envelope. She begins to pour the boiled water into the coffee filters, then stops when she hears her mum’s voice rising from the hall: ‘Do you not now? What are you – a doctor now too, is it?
The carer’s voice is softer. ‘Well, I am experienced. I think a doctor will say that she’s not fit to make decisions…’
‘What makes you think you know better than me? She is my mother, and this is my business.’
She comes into the room quickly, head down.
‘Mum?’
Her face snaps up, lips tight, eyes small and fierce. ‘Don’t worry, Valerie. Just some busybody non-national got a bit big for her boots…’
Until Grandma’s fall, Valerie had never seen her mother cry. She had never considered her fragile like this. She can’t bear it.
The carer stands by the door, her hands clasped before her.
From the TV room, Grandma’s voice carries like a caw, straining as loud as her breath will allow: ‘Fifi, darling, stop it now. What do you want, darling?’
Valerie brings a mug into the TV room, sits on the footstool and takes her grandmother’s hand. Grandma’s face is squeezed up, her brow low and her mouth tense; two very red patches have emerged under her eyes, as though she might cry.
‘Coffee is just filtering, Grandma…’
The carer’s voice is very quiet, very steady. ‘She is confused,’ she says, ‘and it’s distressing for her. There are strategies that can help. I really don’t understand why you won’t get an assessment…’
Aoife is sitting at the table now, her back to the door and the envelope on her knee. She hulks around like a cornered animal, glaring up at the carer.
‘How dare you?’ she says, her voice a simmer. ‘She is my mother, and I refuse to treat her like an old woman. I refuse to tip-toe around her. She is my mother, and, and…’
Painful pity unfolds in Valerie’s chest. Her mother looks old. She looks wretched.
‘… and who are you? Do the agency know you carry on like this? I hired you to do your job, not to stick your nose into family affairs. She’s my mother. MY mother, do you understand?’
30
BABY PEIG FEEDS WITH her mouth clamped over one teat, her hand over the other. If one of her sisters leans in to kiss or touch or speak to Mama, to take the goods that are everything that she wants, the good that is right around her and inside her and that is the opposite of gone, Baby Peig snaps her head around and growls, ‘Mine. Mine Myum,’ and feeds all the harder then, all the longer. Mine, is the first word, then Mama.
31
‘SHE’S NOT UP TO it, Aoife. I’m going to leave her be. She’s just not up to it.’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, Sinéad. I knew there’d be some drama if I let you pick her up. It will do her good, Sinéad.’
‘No, really, Aoife. She says no.’
‘Well… I don’t expect you to understand this, Sinéad, but take it from me – from a mother – it will do her good to see her child get a proper burial. I mean, is she dressed? I bought her an outfit and everything…’
‘She’s wearing a black blouse and skirt. She’s sitting in there refusing to come. She’s hardly even with it, Aoife, to be honest with you. She’s staring into the fireplace. She’s holding the carer’s hand and staring into the fireplace and she doesn’t want to come and I’m not going to push it. I’m sorry.’
‘I should have asked Eileen to get her.’
*
Aoife hangs up feeling more foolish than angry. She shouldn’t have trusted Sinéad to bring Mammy to the burial. She straightens the black skirt around her hips, quickly, before the undertaker comes back; it twists when she walks. She will have to remember to keep straightening it and never to wear it again. Without Mammy here, the whole thing seems like some morbid fancy.
The undertaker comes back – a thick-set woman with a greedy sort of glee about her. ‘So there won’t be many, is that right?’
‘My mother won’t be coming after all…’
‘Oh.’
‘I think we’ll just meet at the cemetery. The priest said he’d do a few words there…’
It was for Mammy’s sake that they got the white coffin. If they had known she wouldn’t be coming, they would have saved the expense. And why did they get a lining? It’s not as if any of them are going to look at sixty-year old remains. It was a silly extravagance having a lining at all. It was senseless. That’s it though; people will go to any length to get money out of you.
*
It is a very sunny day. Eileen is wearing an extravagant mourning outfit – a pill-box hat with black mesh covering her forehead, and a very flattering knee-length bandage dress. Sinéad hasn’t even bothered to wear black. It is just them, watching two teenagers in overalls lower the coffin in beside Daddy. Aoife stands quietly beside Sinéad. She thinks about taking Sinéad’s hand, squeezing it, but Sinéad has her fingers knitted together. Her face is unreadable. When Aoife lifts the first spade of earth, Eileen howls like a banshee, and puts her head on Sinéad’s shoulder. Sinéad and Eileen each throw in a fist of dirt. Aoife tries to say a prayer.
Afterwards, she suggests that they go to the Shelbourne for lunch. Sinéad orders a whiskey with her soup. Eileen tells the waitress all about the exhumation and the burial and everything, and Aoife knows that when she thinks about it afterwards she will cringe, but for now all she feels is disappointed.
32
MOLLY WAKES WITH GRIT on her tongue and her guts full of scream and when she opens her mouth the whirl of sand rushing in and there he is with his eyes blank as buttons, his mouth tunnelling into dark and still maybe, maybe he will draw a breath now and maybe, maybe, maybe she should never have dropped to her knees that time and let herself think gone and her lungs pull for air but fail and fail for his nails are too short for clawing up to her; his fingers, his clean clipped nails, and under the baby skin and blubber the perfect arrangement of his bones and time is running out for she can hear the bells ringing…
‘—Mrs Kearney? The phone, Mrs Kearney. It’s your daughter.’
A neatly dressed stranger with a kind, open face. Wordlessly, she helps Molly to shift her shoulders and her neck, and position the big phone – a mobile phone, is it? But big. The girl helps her to hold it comfortably to her ear and puts a cushion under her elbow.
The phone says, �
�Mammy.’
‘Hello.’
‘Mammy, it’s Aoife.’
‘Oh. Hello.’
‘What day is it today, Mammy?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Mammy, do you know what day it is today?’
‘Yes. No, darling.’
‘Think, Mammy.’
‘Tell me, darling.’
‘Oh, Mammy, you ninny, do you really not know?’
‘I’ve been sleeping, darling.’
‘My birthday, Mammy!’ Her daughter laughs – her grown-up daughter, Aoife – she laughs, but there is no mirth in it. ‘Oh Mammy, you ninny-hammer! Imagine your own mother not remembering the day she gave birth to you…’
‘Oh yes. I didn’t forget. I was sleeping, you see. Happy birthday, darling.’
A year to the day, she came. A year to the day after Molly held him there and looked from the clean floor to his face and back again to the clean floor. ‘Has your mammy been starving you?’ That’s what they said, for the cord was knotted tight as though to choke off the next life she tried. A year to the day. But the baby that came was red and with a hurt grimace and its cry said more more more and Molly’s breasts grew shy and no milk came.
‘How old are you now, darling?’
A year to the day, and oh, so many years to the day that it makes an ache in her to try to count them. While her daughter talks, Molly rubs at her cheek, her forehead, looks at her hands to find no clay beneath her fingernails.
The girl – sallow skin, a heart-shaped face, so pretty – crouches down before her, her eyebrows raised with concern. With fine lips she mouths the shape of ‘Okay?’ Molly frowns and nods. ‘Yes, goodbye darling,’ she says, and she hands the phone to the girl. She can hear the girl talking as she moves from the TV room away to the kitchen.