As You Were

by Elaine Feeney

  Margaret Rose put Michaela on the Nokia to someone in Navan who had the mitten of Padre Pio. She’d been given it for her son who had developed itchy and incurable warts, and it would be sent down on the next bus with a trusted bus driver and hopefully make it in time for Shane, if not this evening, with any luck it would arrive by the morning. Jane blessed herself backwards which, according to Margaret Rose, was motioning in the Devil, and Jane stared at her blankly then began blessing Margaret Rose instead, misunderstanding the instructions, so we all blessed ourselves ten times at Margaret Rose’s request, for fear we’d bring the work of the Devil onto the Ward, and she encouraged a proper blessing. Michaela instructed that we all do it like soccer players, and she demonstrated to her mother and Jane. They copied her and blessed themselves, kissed their thumbs, then lifted their kissed hands to the ceiling, thumbs clutched, and finally patting their hearts. With the help of good God and all of his many archangels, especially the favourite one, Michael, or so they thought, although they were unsure as to which archangel was the favourite, the glove would get here, safely, off the Navan bus.

  The taller nurse leaned in, opened Shane’s dry mouth and rubbed a giant cotton bud across his cracking lips, dipping it into his mouth a little, while holding his head in the crook of her arm. His face reminded me of a dying cow, down after birthing a difficult calf.

  In the corner of the Ward, under the bright German bulbs, Margaret Rose began washing her hands like the plastic noticeboards told her. She scrubbed up to her elbows and linked her hands and scrubbed under her fingernails, using her elbow to turn off the silver tap lever, and dried off with paper towels. Jane stood behind her, crying now, and so Margaret Rose removed Jane’s fingerless gloves and followed the same procedure on her with determined vigilance. Then she combed Jane’s hair and Jane went out on the corridor to see if the bus driver had arrived, immediately forgetting why she was out there, returning promptly to ask.

  Margaret Rose began the prayers. Our Father Who Art. As many decades as she could. All the mysteries.

  Our Father Who Art in Heaven (once).

  Hail Mary Full of Grace (times ten).

  Glory Be to the Father (once).

  Repeat.

  I would not die in here. Not a chance. I would decide my death date. I’d put a hefty bet with a Chinese bookie.

  And to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning. Is now. And ever shall be.

  That evening, I went mad with Google. I’d tire myself out in the great vantablack hole of it. Letting Go. The Acceptance Gap. Seek Safety. Death is always a surprise. The amount of sugar in a custard cream. If someone dies right beside you, do you feel it? The average IQ of a nurse. The average IQ of a student nurse. Why do nurses wear watches on their tops? The amount of sugar in soda bread. Ordering apple drops online. What lighting a match would do to an oxygen machine. Hiding tattoos for your wake. Best make-up. How did Yorick die? Gravediggers. Do they really jump down on graves? Saved by the bell? How many? When? Is it a good idea to place a bell in a coffin? The weight of the soul.

  Amen.

  *

  Shane lasted through Monday night. In silence. The vigil holders had left, but had promised to return early on Tuesday morning.

  Hegs had a restless night tossing and turning until the early hours. So by morning, they goosed him up out of his bed coaxing him all the while, then they sponged him down with a big yellow sponge you’d use to wash a minivan and dried him with Shane’s large Liverpool FC soccer towel. You’ll Never Walk Alone. Walk On. Walk On. With Hope. They took his blood pressure five times until they swapped machines and took it one last time, dismayed at the numbers.

  Jane, with a face of etched concern, began searching for a minor charm for Hegs also, not of the magnificent mitten power, but something, a miraculous medal maybe, and after some success she perched a plastic glow-in-the-dark cheruby thing at the end of his bed. It had pretty yellow buttocks, polished and bare, and its wings were outstretched and out of proportion like Batman on the top of a Gotham building.

  The morning nurses had a swift and quiet handover, which was unusual, and they told Hegs he was due to go for an emergency CT scan. Ms Jo Moran arrived swiftly beside a young doctor with gimpy swagger, neon lime crocs, all business, and skidded at the edge of Hegs’s bed. Hegs was asked all sorts of questions, and looked perplexed as Ms Jo Moran was getting him to tip his nose with his left hand and right hand and left foot up, right foot up.

  Michal came in all prepared with a black leather wheelchair, lifting it up on its back wheels like a BMX bike.

  ‘Patreeeeck, I bring you now for CT brain. Get your bed coat, come now, good man.’

  Molly Zane handed Hegs’s file to Michal in a thick brown envelope, sealed, to be brought to the scan and brought straight back – the entire life and medical history of Patrick Hegarty in one flimsy and rather damp-looking cardboard file.

  Hegs lifted his two legs with his hands and brought them to one side of the bed, but they didn’t move as far as he’d hoped and just when Molly and Michal thought he was about to mobilise, he threw his pale head into his two overgrown toddler palms and sobbed. Eventually, they placed a maroon Tudor bed coat over Hegs’s robust shoulders and gave him some tissues. The footrest on the wheelchair had broken off, leaving Hegs to heap one foot upon the other and Michal set off singing a U2 song in Polish.

  After they left, Molly began emptying Jane’s swollen purple bag, again, and then busied herself with neatly fixing away the contents, but Jane screamed.

  ‘No, no, leave it so . . . Would you leave it be,’ Jane said, swatting at Molly, and grabbed the stuffed bag to her chest. ‘I have my secrets wrapped up in here.’

  ‘You do not, Jane,’ one of the young student nurses said. ‘Not all of your secrets, surely,’ and she winked at the old woman and laughed in that sad way the young play the old.

  ‘I certainly do, young madam, I saved it from downstairs in that awful horrid filthy place, you should really go down now and clean it up. And don’t mind your winking. Or you should perhaps read a book, and learn some manners,’ Jane said.

  I stopped reading. Years ago. When I was a kid and my mind was filled with Father, I needed books. Growing into an adult, I longed for them. There was nothing safer than fiction. But then as I started out on my own, I was so busy. Books reminded me of all the shaking and screaming and suffocating and hitting. I couldn’t concentrate on other people’s stories. Fuck the Cave. And the shadows. Fuck the peach with the friends I needed, they were never coming; talking insects didn’t take me to New York, and a man didn’t show a keen interest in me taking over his chocolate factory, a teacher didn’t come and pluck me into her world of hair ribbons and shiny Mary Janes. Dickens made me feel like I was exaggerating, because there was no workhouse. Or undertakers. Dylan Thomas made a hash of it all. And when Kate Brady ended up walking all alone and destitute in London and never reconciling with the big thick fuck of a father in the third of that trilogy, this finished me.

  Jane began to fuss about Hegs in his absence.

  ‘Try not to be worrying about it all, Jane, he’ll be grand,’ I said, turning over to face her.

  I tried to distract her like I would do with my own children, half-heartedly waving my phone in her face, as though she could play Tetris or go on YouTube and watch some twats play video games.

  She looked puzzled.

  ‘Ah. Now. Should I use your phone, my dear?’ Jane asked me. ‘But who would I call?’

  It hadn’t been my intention to mither her or encourage a call.

  ‘You have the most lovely skin, is it real? Is it really your skin? It’s lovely,’ she said, inquisitively perching at the side of my bed.

  ‘Thanks, yes, it’s my skin . . .’ I said as she shimmied along on the bed. I moved my legs to one side. She rubbed down the bed sheet over and over, and then, patted my thigh.

  It was all the permission she needed.

  ‘You know, I think I’ll r
ing my daughter. Why not? What d’you think?’ she went on, still patting me. ‘I need her to bring in my Sunday clothes and to pluck these buggers off my chin.’ She pulled at some wisps of hair. ‘Would you mind?’ she said.

  ‘No, Jane, it’s not the weekend, you don’t need your Sunday clothes, not today. Today is Tuesday.’

  She was eyeing the phone on the bed and then picked it up with her two tiny hands, and held it like you might do to wring out a facecloth.

  ‘One always needs one’s Sunday clothes, especially, you see, in a nice place like this. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, can I have it?’

  I stared at her kitten whiskers. ‘Oh yes, sure, of course. Yes, here, have it, of course. Here. Ring away.’

  ‘No cord?’ she said. ‘Ah.’ Her eyes were a bright turquoise like the glass jars and baubles you find in wicker baskets outside knick-knack shops on a Spanish promenade. And they had a most peculiar line of mustard yellow running vertical through both irises. Jane had strong oily black eyelashes. The skin on her face was etched with spidery lines especially on her cheeks and round her nose. ‘Well now, isn’t this just lovely?’ she smiled, still holding the phone. ‘And while I have you here, madam, I don’t suppose you’d have a brassiere?’

  ‘What?’ I said, holding her stare for too long, ‘A bra? Really?’

  ‘Yes, you see I just can’t bear it in here without a bra on my back, and for the life of me, I can’t seem to place my hand on mine,’ said Jane, shouting loudly now to aid my comprehension. ‘I think I left it somewhere along the long way here, while they were bringing me here, and what with all the scans and taxis and needles and bars, and, leave it there to all the restaurants they took us to, it’s marvellous really, all the different foods, but it’s been a very busy trip altogether now, and for the life of me, I can’t, well, I can’t seem to . . .’ She looked downwards, grabbing her breasts between her hands. ‘I just haven’t a bit of comfort, with these two sitting down on me all day.’ She squeezed them. ‘And I mean if I needed to take a swim in the sea later, well, I know it’s all the rage to go in without a top on –’ she threw her head back laughing, then stopped most abruptly – ‘well, to be honest, I wouldn’t really be keen to swim without one. But I will if I have to – skinny dip.’

  ‘What? Are you serious?’ I said, laughing nervously.

  ‘Oh yeah, she’s serious,’ said Margaret Rose, and looked down at her own pair.

  I had a spare large black-and-cream Wonderbra shoved in a bag under my bed, that the ambulance staff had snapped off me. It was encrusted with pink star diamantés across the cups. ‘Babe’ times two. It was a hideous thing, really, with empty hooks for the missing straps. I lifted it from under my bed, and pulled the cups together in a rather vain attempt to make it look a little more innocent, or perfunctory. I tried to pluck off the diamantés, but they were stubborn. It was monstrous, but I hated nipples uncovered underneath my clothes, so I could empathise with Jane. Any bra is better than no bra at all, except at airport scanners with the metal wire and all the confounded beeping.

  ‘Jane, here, this is all I have and really I’m awfully sorry about it, and . . .’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no straps.’ I paused. ‘Well, see, it’s . . . strapless.’

  ‘Oh, my,’ she said, grabbing it, ‘you see, look at this now, isn’t it marvellous? Thank you, thank you ever so much, dear.’

  Jane ran her hand over the diamanté stars and walked across to her cell, pulling around her curtains, as though it were a changing room in an old drapery store. She stirred behind the curtain. ‘Oh my,’ she said as she emerged and strutted forwards to me, her shoulder blades folded back like a mangled book. She had entirely abandoned the idea of the cream blouse. The skin on her belly fell downwards like a deflated wasp nest.

  ‘Success,’ she applauded, as her small belly wiggled. ‘Oh, my, that’s better, ever so much better. Ah. Great success. This is a very lovely shop you have here, dear. Will you parcel it up for me now?’

  ‘Would you not prefer to continue wearing it?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, yes, great idea, now, thank you, dear. Ah yes, sure I’m wearing it, no need for the fuss or the parcel. My apologies.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Enjoy it.’

  ‘Oh, I sure will.’

  In terms of a successful transaction, it was daylight robbery but it was the best this boutique could offer to Mrs Jane Lohan. She was delighted, but only so briefly a satisfied customer for next she put her head down, as though I had been caught laughing at her, or told her a dreadful lie, or done some other atrocious thing to embarrass her.

  ‘You OK, Jane?’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, applauding her memory, ‘I almost forgot. The call, we need to make it. I knew I was forgetting something. You see, I’m ever so hot and bothered now. I don’t like shopping so very much and I got ever so distracted. Now we need to make it before our swim. Could you dial it up there for me?’ she asked, expeditiously.

  I hesitated.

  ‘I’ll pay you up for the units,’ she said, noting my apprehension. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you timed me, set your watch there, dear, I have money, I’m good for it, then we’ll know how much I owe you.’

  ‘Oh, no, no, it’s not the money at all, stop, I don’t need money, Jane.’

  She had her daughter’s number scrawled on a beermat, with its edge slightly torn.

  ‘Can you dial this, dear, I’ve no glasses?’

  I dialled. I returned the phone to her ear, but she fast waved an angry hand in the air and continued her swinging legs at the side of my bed.

  ‘No, no, no, you must talk to her for me? She’s never happy when I’m away on my holidays. You see, she’s a jealous sort. I don’t like to speak much on your phones, case I do anything to them, break them, press a wrong number, dial a stranger,’ she said, motioning it this way and that, ‘feck it up on you.’

  She was getting frustrated that I wasn’t playing the game, her game.

  The phone rang out and out. Margaret Rose eventually, sensing my apprehension, made a hang-up sign by lifting her thumb and little finger upside down and dropping it slowly downwards.

  ‘Maybe she screens anonymous calls?’ I said, but Jane didn’t take the bait.

  ‘Call her again,’ she insisted. ‘Go on, dial her again . . .’

  Daughter in a kitchen. Large red presses. Slate floor tiles. Surrounded by lilies. Attractive. Golfer. A guess. All appliances hidden. Integrated. Little signs of life.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to?’ I asked. ‘Maybe try her?’ offering her my phone.

  ‘Ah, now, my dear, I wouldn’t know what I was saying,’ Jane fussed.

  ‘I don’t even know her name, Jane.’

  ‘Oh, I know, but don’t worry. I don’t know her name myself, half the time.’ Jane extended, laughing and swinging the legs at hip height and with sprinter velocity, she was fit as a fiddle, mind astray, heart pumping. It was a cruel combination.

  ‘Pretend you’re a doctor,’ she laughed. ‘G’wan, you can, put on a voice, a doctor voice,’ and she began pulling stiff-upper-lip faces and miming a stethoscope around her neck and lifted it to her ears.

  ‘And you see, ask this precious daughter of mine,’ she said, growing excited, ‘doesn’t she care at all for her mother? Ask her that.’ She paused, then lifted a hand to her face. ‘Oh, and be sure to tell her we’re having our tea outside today on the lawn, all of us. Me and all my friends. That’ll drive her mad.’

  ‘It’s not picking up,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, she will, just wait a minute, have you withheld the number?’

  ‘But it’s not your phone, Jane, does that matter?’ I said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I’m ringing off my own number.’

  ‘Oh, yes, you’re right, she’d love the excitement of a secret number, see, she’s a little bitch like that. Make sure and tell her about the big tea we are planning. About the front lawn and our plan to bring . . .
/>   bring . . .’

  Margaret Rose took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Umbrellas.’

  ‘Brilliant, yes, umbrellas. Thank you . . . make sure and tell her.’

  Jane’s picnic tea set was wrapped up still in the bed sheet. We would each dine on a tissue and a set of rosary beads.

  ‘Ask her,’ she said, holding a tight grip of my chin now, her face deadly serious, ‘what’s her problem with me? Does she not care, and she having a fine big car in the driveway, ask her what did I have her for at all?’

  Her eyes were fast and intent on mine.

  My jaw wobbled, unused to being held to ransom like this.

  Dinnertimes. Father’s hands. Mother. Throat. Neck. Choking. Dancing off the ground.

  ‘I can’t say that,’ I said, resentful of my inability to be assertive without being angry, without provoking.

  I deadened the call.

  ‘I’m not telling your daughter what you said,’ and I handed her my phone, ‘and keep your hand off my chin, it’s a trigger.’

  She threw her head back, laughed and pointed forward with her index and middle fingers firmly together like a gun. Shooting. Pow. Pow. Pow. And she blew the top off her fingers.

  ‘Lave her be,’ Margaret Rose said. ‘I’ve a phone here ya can use, and I’ll ring your daughter and pretend to be the doctor far ya, love.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mimed at Margaret Rose, embarrassed and guilty that I’d dragged her into this.