As You Were

by Elaine Feeney

  And they went out to check again. They would check, and maybe if Claire would step out with them, until they checked.

  As Hegs began to lie back down, Margaret Rose offered him reversing advice. ‘Nather bit, bit more, good . . . yar on the pillow naw, good man.’

  He thanked her.

  Alex squeezed my hand. ‘Here, I’m going to head out for a little while, just to check your mother is OK, and give the kids clothes, settle them.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, of course,’ I said, and waved my free arm over the nightstand contents. ‘Will you take some of this?’

  He grabbed a kidney dish and some plastic cups. ‘I am so sorry,’ I said. I toyed with the idea of telling him I didn’t exactly tell Google I was dying, like he accused me, I more hinted at it, but I resisted.

  ‘I know you are,’ he said, rushing about, frantic to get out the door. ‘I really need to get out of here though,’ he said and kissed me hard.

  ‘Albumen, the egg, the white,’ he said as he walked out.

  *

  I tossed and turned for some time and eventually lifted Shane’s thin laptop in my hands. Whirr. It was fully charged. Odd. On the home screen I could make out a bird, a long-legged goofy thing with black feathers, slick with a white stripe. I remembered seeing one like it before in a swampy field on the way from Orlando to Siesta Key on a trip some years back. We had headed for the coast to get away from the tacky theme parks. I’d bought some villas in Kissimmee the night before to market at home and rent out to Irish families. Alex had stayed in with the kids, watched some films. We hit the road early, despite the fact that I’d had a very late night. I hadn’t slept at all. I’d crept in at around six a.m., after closing a deal in the Red Lobster with the builder, and we’d gone on to a party. He was from East Clare. That morning, after arriving home, I showered, and made pancakes for breakfast. Alex didn’t care, or didn’t seem to care about my tardiness. They ate the pancakes and we headed off.

  After some time on the road, we cut off at a junction to head to a restaurant specialising in home baking, southern comfort foods. Feed the kids again. In the diner I drank iced lemon tea with gin. Through the window I was taken by the way these two birds fought, an arid dryness in my chest, these birds bickering, us silent amongst the billboards and the chains upon chains of same-food-place. Her feathers were raven black with a dirty white neck and a dipped beak. This one’s feathers were raven black with a dirty white neck too.

  There was one Word document on the home screen, one media clip and in the top right-hand corner, a Netflix icon and Spotify link. Cool Runnings was recommended, and he had some half-finished films. American Psycho, Kill Bill, Blue Velvet.

  Things linger after you die.

  FaceBook birthday wishes come in. Shopping vouchers arrive. Hospital appointments. Phone calls from old uni friends. Who don’t know. TV licence people call. Text messages from your mother who often forgets you’re dead. Cold callers from TV and Internet companies.

  A text from Alex checking in to see if I need him to stop at the shop.

  You are fair and born on a Tuesday.

  Things that don’t matter. Things that matter.

  Father cried into his hands night after night, big fucken wailful cries, after my mother eventually left him, the night he sprinted up the stairs and kicked down the bathroom door. She’d escaped out into the night as he shouted after her, about her having put a spell on him, telling her everything she touched was fucked, that she brought badness, and that he’d burn the house to the ground and this time he (fucking) meant it. And no cross of reeds would save us. She kept running.

  After. After. Always tears after.

  Nothing matters after. It’s too late. G’Luck.

  Margaret Rose’s phone rang. Dadadadadadadoom. Dadadadadadadoom. ‘Hello, yeah, this is she. No, I’m Margaret Rose, no, hold on, I cannot speak up . . . I’m not alone. No, no nono . . . Ah, is that you, Jim? Yar in fair traffic . . . Yar number is withheld . . . What? When? Shit. Shitshit. Well, shit anyway.’

  Silence. Pause. Quiet. Oh so Quiet.

  ‘Fuck, where’d she go? Ah, Jim . . . Christ above . . . Ya had wan job. Wan . . . OK, that’s fair, ya had two. Oh, Christ, and no, she hasn’t rang me since . . . the clinic . . . I only heard from her wan time and I didn’a think she was in the best of form, but I thought ’twas natural . . . I’ll try her in a minute . . . Are you in Birmingham? OK, shir of course ya can come back, come back, it’s fine. She’s grown up now . . . ’Tisn’t yar fault . . . ah, sometimes she won’na listen ta any of us. Let’s not worry . . . yet.’

  Grand we would all be with air, I thought, not the city air outside the ugly windows, not the diseased Hospital air, that germ-infested warm air that clings to the walls. Real air, the air that would blow the cobwebs out of you, could burst open some of our diseased pods and empty them out to the Atlantic.

  ‘Good, well, tell the boys ta hold off, that’s OK, he’s her father . . . no way . . . he’ll look after her. Watch.’

  We could all go off in our knickers and jocks, Hegs, Margaret Rose, Jane and me, and bomb-dive off Blackrock Pier.

  ‘Ah, she didn’a tell them . . . silly girl. I’ll get Mic to ring her.’ Pause. ‘Yeah, I’d say so. Look, Jim, thanks . . . and love, just do yar best. But don’t send in the boys if Nick is in the house with Paddy and Bernie . . . ’K? And my guess is, that’s where she is.’

  I could feel cold salty water up my legs, stinging me.

  Grabbing the laptop, I took myself up and out of my bed and I climbed on top of Shane’s rubber mattress and closed the curtains around me. I lay back. Trying to imagine lying completely still. All. Of. The. Time. Shane’s view, as near as it was to me, was so different. I clicked open the Word document.

  Suggestions for My Wi-Fi Interceptor

  Fuck.

  Morto.

  He had left me a kind of mix-tape, with links. Jesus.

  1. Exit Music for a Film – Radiohead (OK Computer)

  2. Gavin and Stacey Christmas Special

  3. Sylvia Plath reads Daddy – YouTube

  4. Links to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (For your kids)

  5. Iron and Wine – Upward Over the Mountain (Early stuff’s the best)

  Really sorry we didn’t chat or get to know each other better.

  But happy to share my Wi-Fi. And here, have a bigger screen. That phone will screw up your eyes, at least that’s what my mam used to say.

  All very best, Shane x

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  Fuck.

  I bawled.

  Chapter 17

  For some hours, like with a text from a lover, I stimmed on the list.

  Michaela Sherlock skittered onto the Ward, howling gently, face white with mottled red spots.

  ‘Mammy, Mauuuummmmmy.’

  Margaret Rose tried to move quickly, but she hadn’t time to close across the curtains without making a scene. ‘Sssshhhhh, ssshhhhh, Jesus, will you get a grip of yourself, Mic . . . Mic . . . ssshhhhnow, Christ, get a grip of yourself. Stop this now. This is no way to be behaving in a place . . . like this.’

  ‘Nick’s with that Bernie wan, Mammmmy,’ she screamed, breathless.

  ‘Yes . . . yeah, I know. Did ya run the whole ways here?’

  Michaela nodded. ‘You knows about it? Why ja not tells us?’

  ‘Why? Why would I tell you that? Would it have been a nice thing to do?’

  ‘Nice?’ Michaela said and threw her hands up in the air.

  ‘Well, would it have helped you? Yar sister? No. So why? So why should I have gone and burdened ya both?’

  ‘Well, just, it’s a shock is all . . .’ Michaela looked softer at her mother.

  ‘Look, Mic, ya have ta remember . . . yar father made his own choices, and now Nick’s making them too. That’s life, love, and to be honest, I have nothing ta add. Ya canny make choices far others, ya can only control yarself.’

  ‘What?’ Michaela exclaimed, thinking on her m
other’s words.

  ‘We can only wait. And hope she’ll see sense.’

  ‘I know, Mammy, but I’m so filled up with worry now.’

  ‘Don’na worry . . . see yar worrying now because ya know . . . look . . . Nick’ll be back. She loves ya too much . . . but you badly need to rub some cold water on yar face, and tidy yarself up . . .’ Margaret Rose urged her daughter towards composure as her own face danced with rage.

  ‘Are ya all right, Mammy? Yar gone awful red?’

  ‘I’m grand, I’m just worrying about yar sister too. Did ya manage ta talk ta her?’

  ‘Yeah . . . just Snapchat . . . said . . .’ She baulked.

  ‘What she say? Tell me out.’ Margaret Rose was cross.

  ‘She’s swearing she won’na come back,’ Michaela said, turning quickly to avoid her mother’s hurt, then went to the loo to compose herself, but it was pointless and when Michaela Sherlock returned from the toilet she was still crying uncontrollably.

  ‘Why is she crying? Stop her, we need to stop her crying,’ said Jane, jumping off her mattress towards them.

  ‘So, tell me about Nick . . . she’s ran off and left Jim. Right? She with yar father?’ Margaret Rose asked.

  Your father. Endgame talk.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Angry –’ she paused, hesitant – ‘with you.’

  ‘What? Angry with me, why? What’s she angry with me far? Shir, I did’na go off with Bernie, why’s she angry wit me? Fuck this . . .’

  Michaela lifted her shoulders and dropped them. ‘Dunno. Just is.’

  ‘Christ, she was so silly ta lave Manchester, she could of bled da death . . . She was’na fit ta be taking off like that. Will she ever learn? Well, did she say she got a fright or what? Jim’s worried sick. There’s no talking ta her.’

  ‘Shir, why ya arsking me if Jim’s telling ya everything?’

  Michaela was hurt she’d been left out of the loop.

  Jane was getting very agitated. ‘No one can learn with you galloping off like this. You’ll need to step out of this classroom at once,’ she shouted. Michaela ignored her. ‘Well now, aren’t you an insolent young madam. You will step outside this door at once. You’re too loud . . . far too loud.’ She danced over to Michaela and stood in front of her, wagging her finger, then raised her arm. ‘Is that what you are? A big-mouthed fishwife?’

  Margaret Rose looked like she’d been stung by a racer wasp. She pursed her lips and stood out of bed. ‘Now just hold on wan minute, Jane.’ Insanity and old age would be no excuse for insulting her anguished daughter.

  Jane grabbed Margaret Rose hard in a chest lock beside her nightstand. Margaret Rose was gentle, tried to coax Jane and move her backwards, unhook herself, but Jane held her hard and Margaret Rose was now doubled over. Jane reached out with her right hand and picked up the hairdryer, pretending first to shoot her in the head, mockingly, but then she waved it backwards, up and high, and whacked it hard and fast off the corner of Margaret Rose’s temple and again, bangbangbang, on the eye socket. Wallop. And again. Wallop. Margaret Rose toppled sideways, landing over on her bed.

  Claire’s feet remained motionless behind the curtain.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Alex said, as he returned onto the Ward, just as I was getting out of bed, followed fast by two young girls in violet tops and hairnets from the kitchen. He leaned over Margaret Rose, calling out to her. More buzzers.

  Jane cried to herself, being pulled back into her own bed by the kitchen girls and dragging her feet along the floors. When she was safely back in the bed, she drew the white sheet up under her chin, and whispered away to herself. ‘Ann should never have come back . . . I won’t stop . . . Stop yourself . . . Why are you all leaving me here? They’re all at me . . .’

  Michaela put a white facecloth under the running tap at the small sink, wrung it and gently placed it on her mother’s forehead, then turned off her radio. Michaela then rang Niquita, hysterical. As Niquita asked questions, Michaela in turn relayed them to the cleaners, while covering the mouthpiece of the phone. The cleaners were having difficulty understanding the requests, and unable to give any solace or advice to the young woman. ‘Look, they’re not telling me nathing, these wans, all I knows is Mam’s rall bad . . . Just five minutes ago . . . She was calling me names . . . I canny remember . . . Why ya arsking so many questions? Fuck, Nick, I dunno . . .’ Michaela had a hand on her hip as she stood over and looked down at her mam. ‘And she knows yar with dad . . . What ja mean, did I tell her? Jim did, yar bodyguard told her . . . Ah, it’s all a mess. What are ya doing ta her? Ya rally nade ta come back now . . . Ah here, look, I’m gonna send ya a Snapchat . . . Ya might believe me den . . . And shir . . .’

  Michaela reached out her long thin arm and took a selfie with Margaret Rose passed out behind her. The white facecloth was dramatic, and Margaret Rose was as pale as the sheet that surrounded her. Michaela cursed the flash for working and then cursed it for not working and on the last click she pulled a duck face.

  ‘Hello. Niquita? Ya. There. Look at that . . . Ya get it? Did ya see her?’

  ‘Nick?’

  Pause.

  ‘Ja knows what, do what ya like.’

  Margaret Rose finally had the facial trauma she required so badly. No more novocaine.

  Michaela put a flashy neon hairband in her mother’s hair and some glittery lip balm on her lips.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ Alex said, ‘look at that bang, jeez.’ A poppy bruise was growing on her temple.

  ‘I need to get out of here, Alex,’ I said, grabbing him desperately. ‘You have to get me out, I can’t, I just can’t, you can’t make me, and that girl needs to leave too, someone needs to get her out, this place isn’t . . .’

  ‘It’s just shock.’ He tried to soothe me. But it was useless.

  I didn’t tell him about the mix-tape.

  Chapter 18

  ‘You sure you OK?’ Michal asked Molly as they sponged down Margaret Rose. ‘You look so so tired.’

  ‘Just wrecked darl. Too many shifts.’

  Margaret Rose was stirring a little. Her face had fallen, but the machines said everything was perfectly fine. It was probably shock and she was sleeping off her pain relief.

  ‘Can I bring the boys in tomorrow? It’s Sunday, Sundays are boring and they’d love to see you?’ Alex asked, softly.

  ‘Who? The kids? Are you mad? Look at them all, Alex,’ I said, ‘look across at them, talking yesterday, unconscious today. I can’t have the kids here. They’re young, I don’t want this to be . . .’ I said. ‘They’re too young to have to watch this. This is not OK, they shouldn’t have to be here . . .’ I paused. ‘To see this.’

  I could see him thinking – about leaving it, pushing it – forming a sentence.

  ‘I can’t think straight in here,’ I told him.

  ‘But you’re getting, so, so . . .’ He paused. ‘Fast.’

  ‘Fast?’

  He left out Worse. Or Incontinent. Perhaps Unbearable. Or Thin.

  ‘Alex, if you don’t help me, I swear I will throw myself from the window.’

  He looked aghast.

  ‘Sinéad, please . . . I’m trying.’

  I attempted to change the subject.

  ‘Michal’s very fresh with Molly.’

  ‘He’s a player,’ Alex said and laughed.

  ‘Ah, he’s not,’ I said.

  ‘He certainly is. And you’re right, you are in that bed too long.’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to convince you of, see you’d go mad yourself in here.’

  ‘Right. Fancy a walk? I’ll push if you sit. Deal?’

  This was a test.

  ‘Deal. But just to the loo?’ I motioned, feeling queasy.

  I could see he was ahead of me, plotting.

  ‘I’m taking my wife to the corridor and we will stop off at the loo upon our return,’ he said, formally. ‘Now, isn’t this like our good pub days? Me pushing you alo
ng in a shopping trolley?’

  The corridor was apricot too. Nurses moved fast with clipboards and cans of Coke. Patients shuffled along, keeping close in to the walls, some were holding onto a railing with both hands. It was too busy, even for Alex, negotiating the chair. We came back past the loo.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Need to go . . .’

  He opened the door inwards, and awkwardly dragged my chair in after him.

  First he put down the toilet seat, and held my elbow as I lifted myself up and out, and crouched over the loo. I vomited, he held my hair back at the nape of my neck, cold and clammy, and when I was finished he wiped my face with those thick paper hand towels.

  ‘Shit. Can I help?’

  I gawked, and blew my nose.

  ‘Sorry, but I still . . . I still need to . . . go.’

  ‘Yeah . . . OK, right, sorry.’

  He lifted me onto the loo.

  I sat there and he tried to be discreet, checking out the mechanics of the showerhead and running his hand along the uneven grout and over the sink. Hhhhhmmm. He went. Then he hummed. Next he played with the SOS cord.

  ‘Pull it.’

  ‘No.’

  We laughed.

  But nothing.

  Stranger fright. Performance anxiety.