As You Were

by Elaine Feeney

  ‘I’m on a commode. I’m living on a toilet – we don’t need a special bed. Besides. We have a special bed.’ I tried to wink.

  He guffawed, knowing my winking was bullshit.

  ‘OK, maybe we can manage without the bed, but I need to get you oxygen, I’m supposed to get this number, and then ring it,’ he said, trailing off. ‘Hospice, I was supposed to be given a Hospice link, or number or woman or something,’ he said, swigging again, and talking more loudly. ‘Molly, Molly has it for me, shit, shit . . . The number, it was Molly who . . . Her legs, Molly’s, they were shaking . . . Poor women, that was some fright.’

  ‘Calm down, it’s grand, drink your wine. You need to stop panicking. You’ve had a bit of a shock, we all have . . .’

  And he did drink.

  ‘Hear me out,’ I squared with him. ‘Please. I’m a good wife, right?’

  We both made faces as though the food we were about to eat had gone off.

  ‘OK, I’m an OK mother, right, can we agree on this?’

  He nodded. ‘Come on, Sinéad, you’re a great mother, you’ve always been great.’

  ‘I’ve been absent, you know, and look what I’ve gone and done. I should have told you. I’m so sorry. I really meant to, you know, I wanted to, I just, I really couldn’t.’

  ‘You were absent,’ he said, swallowing the wine.

  ‘I know, I really can’t go back . . .’

  ‘But we are all absent,’ he went on, interrupting, ‘even when we’re there. I’ve been absent too. I’ve regrets, the way I’ve been, and distant, afraid to make a decision, take a chance, taken you for granted. I always knew who you were, you know, you didn’t change that much, Ms Sinéad Hynes. You were always a terrific dose, but buyer beware. See, I love you, you were a big gamble . . .’

  ‘Lovely, an outsider?’ I said.

  ‘No, you’re getting me wrong, I loved that about you. And me, that I’d take a chance on you. And they love you, the kids, you make us all laugh, even when you weren’t there.’

  ‘With me or at me?’

  ‘At you.’

  He put the bottle down.

  ‘They love you so much.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, Sinéad –’ he cupped my face in his hands – ‘you’re so hard on yourself. Please don’t, it’s fine, you’re a human being. Fine. A Fine one. We’re just humans, chance encounter, trying.’

  ‘Everything OK in here?’ Molly slipped her head in.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, quietly.

  ‘You been drinking, hun?’

  ‘No, no, it’s blood,’ he lied, rubbing down the wine stains on his shirt.

  I held up the empty bottle of wine and she laughed.

  ‘Got any lift? Jeez, I need some.’

  ‘’Fraid not,’ Alex said.

  But then he remembered the second bottle and handed it to Molly and she twisted off the cap with her teeth, placed a chair beneath me, and left the commode out on the corridor.

  ‘So sorry, so gross,’ she said.

  She poured into two plastic cups. ‘Cheers, darl,’ she said, handing me one, and let her glass down to me.

  ‘Sláinte!’

  She was still shaking.

  ‘We’ll git you moved, we’re going to move you to ICU shortly now. Gawd, some night, huh?’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘ICU’ll be the best place for you, hun.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘let me go, please, Molly. I can’t spend another night in here. Tell him.’

  Molly leaned forward and kissed me on the side of the face. She downed her wine in one big gulp and threw the empty cup in a needles bin.

  ‘Naw, ya can’t,’ she said. ‘Naw one could. Or should.’

  And just like that I was free. But I was always free. Alex just needed approval and inebriation. Molly instructed Alex to ring her when he needed to, and told me it was really great to have met, then she told Alex that a husband should always do what his wife says, darl/hun, and walked out. He was wild-eyed and daft but he had an order now, from someone else.

  He plonked me back on the commode after convincing security to let him onto the Ward for one last time, and grabbed my things – headphones, books, Santa’s grotto, care package, kidney dish – and stuffed it all in a large green refuse bag. He pushed me along the corridor as I drank from the second bottle of wine. And he hurled the bag over his shoulder.

  Claire Hegarty came along the corridor and stopped abruptly when she saw me. ‘Why are ye all out here? Have they not sorted you another room yet? Dreadful,’ she said, eyeing the large sack. ‘Where did you get the wine? Am I missing a party? Awful what happened the window. Very worrying, but did I not say something would happen, did I not say it? Luckily, I was flat out, I’d have gotten a terrible fright. Daddy’s still asleep down there. They’re waiting to move him, but there’s something up with . . . a machine. He’s not –’ she broke off – ‘stable. To be honest, the whole thing is making me all anxious. I hate leaving him in there . . . alone.’

  ‘Hegs is still on the Ward?’ I said, concerned.

  ‘Oh, yes, sure this is twenty-first century Ireland. Disgraceful.’

  Her energy was frightening.

  ‘Well, we’re going to head on,’ Alex said, slurring a little. He began pushing the commode along the corridor; we didn’t need to listen to Claire Hegarty in the real world, and she sensed it, then tottered along beside us.

  We all waited, awkwardly, for the ping of the lift.

  ‘You know, Daddy just wants to get out.’

  ‘Right,’ Alex said, bewildered, but Claire was staring directly at me.

  I shot my eyes to hers. ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘Well, goodbye then,’ she said, with a little wave.

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye,’ Alex said. ‘All the best to your dad, with the elections and all, hope he pulls out . . . round. Ground, please,’ he said to a man in green scrubs with a white coat and white shoes, mask around his neck.

  ‘Hold,’ someone yelled and the man put his white plastic shoe to the door and we all squeezed up, Alex dragging the commode over to allow a young porter with Manchester United arm tattoos, push in his trolley.

  ‘Thanks, man,’ he said, as we accommodated a young kid, fresh from theatre.

  His mother’s panicked face softened and she smiled down at me. ‘Celebrating?’ she asked, desperate for a distraction.

  ‘Kind of,’ I said. ‘I’m going Home.’

  ‘Ah, that’s great to hear. Hear that, Mark? You’ll be out next, see, everyone gets better.’ She smiled down at the child on the small trolley. ‘Great to be getting out of here. Best of luck.’

  We watched as they all took leave of the lift.

  Alex then wheeled me out and round the corner past the public toilets, past the entry to Accident and Emergency where a man sat crying as a child bounced beside him with a bar of chocolate. We went on out past the café with long queues for the deli counter. I didn’t speak. I didn’t dare open my mouth. Truthfully, we were both a bit pissed, and afraid of getting caught. Alex didn’t usually drive under the influence, but he was too astray in the head to stop now.

  He didn’t stop at the café; he didn’t change his mind when the air hit back at us through the revolving doors. I felt light and giddy as we went out towards the night.

  Under the street light some magpies swarmed over the roof of the Volvo. White plumage, neon orange lamps. Fluttering. Circling.

  One for sorrow.

  Two for joy.

  Three for a girl.

  Four for a boy.

  Five for silver.

  Six for gold.

  Seven for a story never to be told.

  I saluted seven times.

  Chapter 23

  Shortly after returning home, we decided, together, that I should go for treatment and we decided, together, for better or worse, not to prepare the children yet, or speak much of it, not directly. Not in a sit-down way, for they were
all of such different characters; especially Nathan who I worried about the most, how much like me he was, how he’d retreat, disconnect.

  We took long slow walks. My mother visited every day, and in her way, and she avoided all conversations around my sickness, though I heard much about other people’s misfortunes. Language failed her, though she stayed for hours, often past teatime, just there, in our company, in a new comfortable silence, or pottering about. I grew less and less impatient with her, as she sat on the couch watching The Chase, or helping the boys with their routine.

  Summer came early and we sat out in the back garden for much of it, the boys jumping into the large paddle pool, except Nathan who didn’t like sun or water, and sat under a tree with a Stephen King book. The yellow rosebuds were coming out, and the black spots were challenging them. Alex had littered pots here and there, terracotta ones, with bright daisies and sunflower seeds, all potential. Until they got eaten by slugs.

  I picked up my laptop once, and closed up some deals. I read some books, lots of books.

  Time slowed.

  The tooth fairy came and three legged-races were lost. Matches were played and mostly lost, dinosaurs were renamed, teeth were left unbrushed, jocks were left for pick-up, and fights broke out. Someone on the bus told Jacob that he was a pansy. And I told the little shit that I’d break his fucking scrawny legs if he hassled my son again. And I taught Jacob how to say it, loud, and not to be afraid. It took a long time to get him to scream out. He kept giggling, and covering his mouth with his little fat hands – no, Mammy.

  Piano grade one, violin grade three and a row with Joshua about giving up music altogether. We compromised and he switched to electric guitar. I instructed Alex to burn all school reports, for no news is good news, because we should be valued in neither our successes nor our failures, but in our endurance.

  We redecorated every room with colour.

  *

  One Monday, Margaret Rose came around for lunch. She arrived at the front door and when I opened it she looked unusual, somewhat uncomfortable in her clothes. She had a fussy peach-and-gold scarf about her neck, and her hair had been blow-dried and back-combed; her face looked strange, somehow more stern or lined, with dark foundation and black eye kohl and lashings of blue mascara. In the kitchen she fussed with her large orange handbag and after much coaxing, eventually sat on a high stool at the kitchen island, constantly checking behind her. Hegs had passed away some hours after the glass fell from the window, she told me – it was the shock – but he went very fast, and looked younger as a corpse than he had ever looked in life. She always went to removals, it’s the right thing to do, she said.

  Things were not so good with Paddy. He was missing again, but the girls were doing OK, it was hard keeping them away from trouble. My boys hadn’t reached this age, she said, and quickly apologised and blessed herself. But just wait until they do. Then apologised again and blessed herself, and a final apology for blessing herself. We laughed and she relaxed a little. We had tea and a slice each from an apple tart after lunch, which she’d brought; I was embarrassed I hadn’t baked anything, and she told me life was too short to worry about baking. That she’d only come to see me, to talk to me, because in truth, she missed me. She’d sent Jane a care package, every month since, you know, they moved her to, well, you know, she wasn’t comfortable with where they had moved Jane and so I didn’t press her; she chatted about the care package, just things, photos of Clifden, Dog’s Bay, boats at Roundstone, some soap, handcream, magazines, a few loose tops and nice trousers, some bras, knickers and a lipstick. But she was refused entry to see her. Only family.

  I thanked her for coming and said I hadn’t been sure she would.

  We hugged, in that awkward way misplaced people do, and neither of us knew when to let go. So we stood for a long time, my face in her fussy scarf.

  Byebyebyebyebye.

  Bye.

  Margaret Rose dipped her finger into the hole at the foot of Jesus. She then walked out the front door backwards, blessing herself.

  ‘He’s a finer, right?’ I said, nodding at my mother’s gift.

  ‘Not funny, Sinéad,’ she said, laughing. ‘Jaysus, God be good ta ya,’ leaving the way she arrived, to leave luck in our home.

  *

  Later that evening the boys were in their PJs. Except Joshua, who no longer wore PJs and was walking around the house in a pair of jocks and a black hoody, the hood permanently up on his round head. We lay under duvets that Nathan had placed down in the sitting room, coaxing us all to watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Getting everyone off personal screens was almost impossible, but Nathan worked hard at family gatherings. Joshua complained, wanting to play Xbox, and Alex plucked down his hood and tossed his hair – fuck sake, Dad – and Joshua quickly put it up again. Alex then told him to put on pants, and he grunted, fuck sake, Dad, pants, really? And saying he’d watch the dumb film only if he could stay on his phone, but Alex pleaded, no phones rule, remember, and Nathan kept repeating, Alex went on, you know the rules, you do, and Joshua told him the film was full of inaccuracies, but also said it was all dumb fiction in any case. Alex pleaded again, put-on-pants, get-off-phone, stop-cursing, and though he continued revealing spoilers, Joshua did what he was told, eventually, and took the hood down, telling Nathan and Jacob that it was all about Harry’s dead parents, which, he felt very strongly, was a stupid way to begin anything, but Nathan disagreed, saying, look what Harry had achieved, all alone, and Alex said that when someone loves us, like properly loves us, we bring that love for ever, and ever. Nathan agreed, and Jacob looked wide-eyed and interested in how a kid like Harry could do so much with a wand, until Joshua said they were all just silly posh kids, and Harry Potter didn’t exist anyway, so it was all a big waste of time. Jacob said he was real and had curly glasses. And we all laughed, except the teenager who watched it with one eye on his phone, and one on the TV screen.

  *

  I was shearing a ewe and she was wrathful, for she was an old ewe, the oldest ewe we had, and we had kept her from when she was a pet lamb, fed her by the bottle, for her mother had died moments after birthing her, and left a white mound, heaped out on our scraggy hill, just down from the yard, where she lay among the yellow ferns and tall thistles, so when she was a young lamb, all her memory came from touch, our early touches of the bottle towards her mouth, her wool hard and coarse, and as she grew, her sensory memory was alive, and now, she’d had enough of her wool being taken, stripped off her, she kept hopping and leaping at the back of the holding pen, late May, flocked with all the other sheep, ready, she darted this way and that, head down, for the old ewe was too old to be meat, as she scrambled back into the corner, her feet skidding out from under her, desperate to stay heavy with her coat, for maybe her memory knew that November was cruel, but nothing to the March winds that would come again, with hail and wicked frosts, and that utter cruelty of April, trying to kill off what it has spawned, spiting itself, when the early growth would flourish in earnest, and this old ewe had birthed lamb after lamb, clean and fast, each spring, early to drop, always one of the first, giving us Easter meat, and every summer we’d grab her by the neck in the pen, and straddle her between our thighs, my younger brother holding down her body, I’d knock her sideways, gently, and he’d kneel softly upon her warm coarse wool to pin her, as I’d snip at her with an old blade shears, as her coat flocked back on itself into folds, wings of buttery yellow, damp, it became one rug, and we’d skirt it, roll it, helping her up, as her frightened eyes watched for my brother to lift up the blue metal clasp of the gate, and when he’d swing it back open, she’d dart out, rushing up the steps of the pen, shitting nervously, and run back down towards the scraggy hill, unused to the lightness of her body now, two or three fresh red wounds in my wake, and I’d berate myself as I was falling to sleep that night, tossing and turning, for the clumsy sharp cuts I left on her, that she didn’t deserve, that would sting, I’d felt woeful, embarra
ssed at her exhaustion, at her body’s benightedness, her terrified dark eye staring at me, and my hands, wet from sweat, sticking to the small shards of paint on the old royal-blue shears, the paint chipping off to reveal a rusty dirty brown, like the ewe’s particle knowledge, in pieces, how to lie still, play dead, hide, show yourself, hide again, when to jump up and run, and run, running fast away from us, giving her last birth out on the hill, the old ewe is down, the ewe is sick, hunt her in, grunting, hunt her out, bleating, leave her to the sun, the wind, the rain, spray her, dip her, copper injections, toss her, watch her, count her, until she dies, until we rolled up her last wool coat, the last offering, and we gathered it, twined it neatly, it was warm and comfortable, and I let her go, as she skittered out through my hands, running on past the open gate, out to join the herd, though this time, she slowed to a walk, uncertain up against the strong breeze on the hill, her shorn beating skin stayed throbbing under my nervous hands as she, at last, put her head down and grazed a little, and until eventually, I could no longer feel her body under mine, as my own blood roused through me now, coursing, hot, alive, just, then rushing, whooshing, whooshing, until I no longer felt pain, just a gentle gushing in my ears, warm, goodbye, I have known you, I have known the way of you, now as you were, and I thanked her for all she had given us.