He sat down on the end of the narrow bed, fidgeting.
‘Anyway, he was always so fucking cranky too. You know?’
He started to cry.
‘Ah, here,’ I said, offering him a tissue. ‘No need for that, it’s OK, don’t cry . . . please . . .’
‘No, no, it’s not OK, but nothing was right and you know . . .’
I nodded.
‘Ma just couldn’t lift him, and it was so expensive with the feeds and the lifting and really it was too hard, too much . . . much too much. You know?’ he said, head bent low, and rocked his body forward, allowing its eventual collapse deep into the bed. He picked up the Costa cup and set it down again. I would have liked to see the action his lips made when he drank, but he didn’t. There was certainly a resemblance to his brother, around the lug of the ear and across the nose bridge. Their knees were identical.
Assert yourself.
‘Yeah, look, I understand you’re sad and all, but to be honest . . .’ I said, my voice almost inaudible, as he leaned in to me to hear, tugging his earlobe to help, ‘I’m sorry he’s dead, and all, but we didn’t speak, much . . .’ I offered, trying to snap this stranger out of his melancholic regret. I thought of my mother’s text. She would be very ashamed if I was cruel to a dead man’s brother. ‘I’m so sorry he died, it’s so sad, but maybe it’s a relief?’ His crying began to anger me. ‘Oh, fuck knows,’ I went on, annoyed. ‘But it’s no way, it’s no way to live, the way your brother was living.’
He looked wounded. ‘Yeah, I know, oh, here, I know I should have tried, you know, I just . . . left it. We just, we disconnected. Like I hope you don’t think I’m a bad person . . . like . . . you know?’
‘Ah, look, Stephen, no, course I don’t, besides, roads are deadly, not your fault . . .’ I said.
‘Oh, yeah, yeah, suppose you’re right,’ Stephen muttered. ‘They really are.’ He looked thankful as he began to play with his hands. ‘She never wanted him to have the bike, you know?’ he sighed. ‘But he always got his own way.’ He turned and looked squarely at me. ‘What happened you?’
‘Nothing . . . just sick,’ I said, defensively.
He eyed the picture of Santa’s grotto.
‘Got kids?’
‘Those? No, I stole them for the Christmas card.’
‘Shit, shit. Yeah, sorry, stupid question. Shit. I’m just awkward in these . . .’ Stephen laughed quietly, and then made an odd kind of chapel out of his hands. ‘Aw, fuck, they must miss you, poor guys, and you holed up in here?’ He stared at me, my heart pounded and my mouth filled with water. He was so good at holding a gaze that it made me queasy. ‘Shane left you a note, a note thing for you, on his machine,’ he said, changing the subject.
‘What? You sure?’
‘Uh-oh, hmmm . . .’
‘For me?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure it’s yours, he wanted you to have it . . .’ he said, lifting a MacBook Air from the bag. ‘I mean he was quite clear,’ Stephen said. ‘He typed his requests.’
‘He did?’
‘Oh, yeah, of course,’ Stephen said, noticing my uncertainty. ‘His hands were fine – quadriplegia, but some nerves had rerouted, imagine, nerves can do that. Isn’t it amazing? I think, or somewhere in that region, L something, T something, oh, I dunno, to be honest I’m not really sure of the mechanics of it, or the numbers, Ma knows all that info, but I . . .’ He wavered, sighing, discontinuing his own banter. ‘I didn’t really listen to . . . details.’
Stephen was growing impatient like a dog at the front door waiting by their leash. He raised an eyebrow to move along the business.
‘You really sure it was me?’ I said, spelling out my name slowly, S-I-N-E-fada-A-D-H-Y-N-E-S.
‘Yes. Sure.’ Stephen pointed to the machine. Eleven Inch.
‘OK,’ I muttered. My voice was so shallow; none of my replies could hold weight.
The man needed to be let off the hook.
‘So, here’s the machine and I’d like to get this sorted, let you . . .’ he said. ‘And push on, you know, to let you have some rest.’ Then he started to cry again and on impulse, a rather cringey impulse, I rubbed his thigh. It was an odd reflex response; the static energy gave me an electric shock. I apologised and we started to giggle, hysterically, prone as I am to wholly inappropriate reactions. He shook out his leg like a worm arriving up from the soil.
‘I have a charger here somewhere,’ his head back down rummaging in the bag. ‘I’ll plug it in for you.’
‘No, I get out the odd time, you’re grand, I can get to the plug,’ I said, wryly. ‘They let me off out, you know, to piss or shower.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ he said, his eyes lingering longer than before over me, scanning. He pulled his abdomen as far into himself as he could and turned towards the door and checked his exits. ‘I’d better head on,’ he said, trotting his index fingers along my nightstand, previewing himself walking out.
My phone vibrated. Margaret Rose coughed loudly, and coughed again.
‘I hear it,’ I acknowledged her.
‘Well, check it,’ she said, shooting a nasty glance at Stephen.
It was Alex. I didn’t open it.
Stephen was focused. He needed absolution, and people in need of guilt removal or absolving from sins are usually completely self-consumed in their own mission. I was familiar with this.
‘Where’d he sleep?’ he said, as he stood up to take his leave. I pointed to the vacant bed, blue mattress – the wet patch, last of Shane, had dried in – and Stephen moved himself, side-stepping awkwardly to Shane’s cell beside me, the curtains opened back.
‘Yeah, yeah, just there, there . . .’ I whispered, my fists tight. I didn’t want to discuss a bed with him, not one with a metal hoist and a rubber mattress, or try making idle conversation about the bars they hoist up, clangclang, which keep you from falling out.
‘I’d better run . . . you know, before . . .’ Stephen said, trailing off, excusing himself by bowing awkwardly, and took his leave. Hulk’s angry face stared back at me.
I wanted to say I’m Sorry. I wanted to tell him how handsome he was. I wanted to say that it really was a tragedy for him and his brother. I wanted to say that I missed his brother’s smell, as awful and noxious as it was. I knew this was a lie of sorts, but it might have made him happier. I should have said that his absence created a draught and that’s the most any of us can hope for. But he was too far removed from our world on the Ward not to take that as an insult. Then I wanted to tell him that I was dying too. I wanted to ask him if he had a wife, and if she was dying, what would he do? What would she do? Would she have rushed home in the Volvo, summoned him to a meeting in the bedroom, spilled the whole fucking sad lot of it out? Would they aggressively Google every known drug and cure and procedure and American oncologist and yogi and kefir grains and spinach plants and reiki and mindfulness and everything they could to save her? I bet they would. But she’d die anyway. And all eyes would be on her. And all energy into phone calls and tests and trials and everything would revolve around her. And fuck that. And I worked up immeasurable anger with his imaginary wife. Because she’d probably do everything perfectly, just like other people do.
‘Bye,’ I whispered to myself.
‘I’m Angela Lansbury, you know?’ squealed Jane as she woke. ‘Remember me, Angela?’ She began mime typing with the leather gloves.
‘Indeed I know, Janey,’ I whispered. ‘I mean, Angela.’ And she smiled.
I fixed my oxygen mask back firmly on my face and tried to keep my own counsel, think things through, make a decision.
*
Friday passed in a blur of loneliness, for Alex, the boys, for my mother, and much sedated sleep. The cathedral rang out for the angelus at six. Michal arrived and tugged a plastic apron from the pull-out roll that hung outside the door. I tossed and turned in and out of wakefulness with an odd taste of sweet caramel. The plastic aprons unravelled in a heap like butcher’s sausages.
Margaret Rose was perched on her bed like the last summer peach in an ivory fruit bowl.
Michal balanced a cereal bar in his pale mouth, while tying the flimsy apron at the small of his back. He was fussing with my magazines and books and began wiping the face of Heaney with a rag cloth.
I snapped.
‘You always so angry?’ he said. ‘Why, always so so angry cococococo?’
‘Don’t cococococo me. What the fuck type of noise is cococococo’ I spat in a whispered hiss.
‘Co? Co? What is? What you going on about, lady? Why you getting so angry all of the time, is it that you’re sick? And all the time angry at your nice Husband. How does he stick you? Hmm?’ Fuck knows. Michal went on wiping. But his face was sympathetic, his eyes glossing over with a film of exhaustion.
‘You think I’m stupid, huh?’
‘No, no, that’s not what I . . .’
‘Just another stupid Polish man, because I fill your tea every night and give you biskits, you think I don’t know history and books, your history, mine, because I clean for you? I will be kind with books. No need for worry.’
I thought of him calling out to me in the scanner.
‘No, no, it’s just . . . I’m very sorry,’ I said, quietly.
‘Yeah, well, I know how special books are. I know . . .’ he said, and placed the book down gently. ‘But no need to be so cross. Is it special?’
‘Not really. My father gave it to me.’ I nodded at Heaney.
It was the first time Father’d shopped alone and it was the only personal gift he’d ever bought for me, probably because it was on a Best Sellers’ list in one of those bookshop chains with a three-for-two offer, poetry and two cookery books, one for me. Sorry for everything, here’s some poetry. Enjoy. Your mother is leaving me. Goodbye. And all I’ve done for her. I gave her a cookery book. Goodbye. Your mother is leaving me. I was so happy with the book, but then he said that he’d watched him on the Late Late Show, Heaney, or some documentary and that he was a good farming man, like himself and not a poof, like most poets.
‘My father is dead,’ Michal said. ‘When I was five.’
‘Oh, Michal, I’m sorry.’
He was stuck rummaging in behind Jane’s curtain, and attempted to prise the card from her hands as she screamed out, ‘The pain that you’ve been feeling, can’t compare to the joy that’s coming. Can’t compare to the joy, to the joy, the pain can’t compare . . . lalala,’ she sang out.
‘I sorry too,’ Michal said swiftly, coming back to me.
‘Oh, no, no need. I was way out of line.’
He sat on the edge of my bed. ‘So, what was he like, what he want?’
‘Who?’
‘Your visitor?’
‘Ah, he was just upset, you know, for Shane.’
‘Sad for his brother, no? Why? He never visits him, why they never visited?’ But Michal didn’t wait for a reply, the question didn’t warrant an answer and he got up, and fixed Jane back to bed.
*
‘Hey.’ It was Alex. ‘Evening coffee! Ta-da!’ he said, warmly. He sat on the bed, and moved up closer to me.
‘Oh, Alex, I’m so glad you came back. I’m, I’m, you know, very sorry,’ I stuttered, beginning to cry, and I lurched forward. ‘I don’t even know where to start. I’m so glad, so happy, you came. I’m so . . . glad.’
Glad. FFS.
Relieved.
He placed the cup of coffee on the bed table and began to look dejected. Maybe we were meant to play ostrich again? Maybe I wasn’t meant to cry. Fuck knows.
‘How’re the kids?’
‘Grand,’ he said, circling his wedding ring about on his ring finger. ‘You know . . . considering.’
‘That’s something,’ I offered.
‘Your mother has them . . . said she’d keep them for a few days. As many as . . . I just can’t, you know. I don’t seem to be able to. I could hardly drive. I mean, I could hardly change gear. I drove straight through a red light. I’m not . . .’
‘Great, good that she’s taken them. She won’t mind . . . she loves . . .’ I interrupted myself. ‘Oh, fuck, Alex . . . please say you didn’t tell her?’
He paused.
‘Alex? Oh, fuck, no . . . Alex . . . did you say anything?’
He looked bereft. ‘No, Sinéad, no, no, I didn’t . . .’
‘How’d Joshua’s game go?’ I asked quickly.
‘Lost.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yeah . . . but he’s grand, got man of the match.’
His gaze fixed across on Margaret Rose.
Claire was wearing new pink bed socks.
‘Look, love, I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t believe it fully myself, and then I really tried to . . .’
‘Nails OK?’ he said, interrupting me, searching the crumpled white sheets for my hands. The varnish was destroyed but one nail was perfect, red and shiny, triumphant, and I tried to lurch it up on top of another, but one lone perfect fingernail wasn’t enough to cover four others that were a congealed mess. I began crying. I tried to think of political leaders naked and of Paul Newman. Nothing worked.
‘Jesus, ah, love, come now,’ he said, ‘not fucking tears . . . you know I can’t cope when you cry. Dry your eyes, mate.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Remember it? The song? Jeez, it’s a long time since I heard that on the radio.’ Alex loved remembering the last time he heard songs on the radio.
We were at a music festival the summer ‘Dry Your Eyes’ came out. It was infectious, addictive. Everyone would break into it over the weekend, especially throughout the campsite with its big fuck-off chip vans, pancake stalls, knicker-hawkers, monster beer bars, filthy dirty portaloos, spray paint and garbage, tins and cans, tents on fire. The Streets weren’t even on the line-up. But nothing really mattered then. Starting out.
‘Yeah, yeah, I remember.’ The red nail was waving back and over like a bobbing life buoy.
‘Shit . . . where’s my chair?’ he said, looking around quickly. ‘Whoa, you moved me out fast.’ He smiled and winked at me. A thaw. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know we need to talk,’ rubbing my left hand, right down over my knuckles, catching and squeezing the middle joint of my pinkie between his index finger and thumb.
I was useless with kindness.
‘The kids are good, they’re great, you know, they’re fine, totally grand . . .’ he said, unsure, finally, not letting go of my finger. He was predicting a difficult conversation he would try to avoid. He spoke faster. ‘You didn’t miss much, the match wasn’t great, they were slow on the pitch, laboured, and actually, you missed nothing.’ He laughed, nervously, grasping at anything that might disconnect us from Magpie, and from her shitty offerings. I never went to Joshua’s matches. They were played late on Friday evenings when I drank espresso Martinis in some posh joint in town.
Ms Jo Moran landed in then to call it. Give our weekend a big lift. Push us in some direction, to deliver news. She looked blankly at the bed first and then lingered a while, staring at my knees.
Tall. Needy. Roomy. Nice tits. Pet scans. Thymus. Thyroid. Tonsils. Sentinel lymph node mapping. Hepatic capsule. Elizabeth Taylor. Perfect lips. Going. To. Run. A. Marathon. Thingy.
Metastasising.
‘But look, in all honesty you can buy yourself time, Sinéad, maybe, if you just try to consider your options. But you know, it is ultimately up to you. I don’t want to force the issue.’
I nodded. Half-hearing her.
‘I’ll leave ye for some time . . . think on it. Sure, look, I’ll pop back in later.’ She motioned to leave, and twisted back around the curtain. ‘They’re really lovely in oncology. I know you all got off on a bad foot. But I’ve talked to them.’
Buying. My decision. Her decision. Shhhhh now. To buy. Buying. I have bought. I will buy.
Mine. I could see Alex’s lips moving, as though saying it made him less culpable. Or even blameless. He remained quiet. Maybe he wasn’t blameless. But it was poor
timing for this, to ascertain his role in our marriage. To give that thought.
I made no decision. I only waited. Please leave me. Please. It was horrid timing.
Of course I still love you.
Of course I still love you.
I will always love you.
Come here to me.
After Moran, words sounded forced, stupid almost, our world spiralled into a frantic free fall as if these results were news to me. It was somehow very different, now there was a witness.
You know you looked for this, right? I’ve watched you, Sinéad, you can’t settle yourself on anything, look how I can begin and end a task, you just leave it high and dry, you do, you so absolutely do, and I think that you’ll never amount to anything, because first, you have to do what you need to do, shir here I am raising a girl in a household of lads, I’m responsible for you, you know that, what a big job that is, me, your father, and it’s a damn tough responsibility, I mean I’ve watched you out there on the pitch, and when you throw in the towel, it’s gone, it’s over, you don’t even fight it, I can’t believe how much competitive streak you lack, it’s a crying shame really, but you are indeed, solid fucken useless, and that’s all now I have to say on the matter. Ready us some tea, and for fuck sake, do it right, last time, you didn’t rinse out the teapot, the old tea leaves, still there, it was disgusting, so do it right this time, OK, and Sinéad, one last thing, will you stop biting down your nails? And let them grow long, they’re disgusting, look at your mother’s hands, how beautiful they are, though they’re not much good for anything else, but they are very lovely to look at, let yours grow as long. Though I doubt you’d have that in you either. Self-restraint. Doubtful.
As You Were Page 17