‘Nonna, it doesn’t matter how lovely it is. It’s an outrageous price. Jesus, you could stay in the Shelbourne for that amount. How in the name of God would you be able to afford it?’
‘I’ll use the income from Pembroke Road.’
‘The rent you save won’t pay for one day in this place - surely you must know that.’
‘I don’t pay rent, I own it.’
‘You bought the flat on Pembroke Road?’
‘I bought the whole bloody house!’ she said.
‘When?’
‘After the war.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Yes. I bought it from a German chap. You see, he’d left Germany in the thirties - he was so disgusted by the carry-on there and when it was all over he decided to go back to help out. Wasn’t that very forgiving of him? A lovely man. I often wonder what happened to him after. It was very difficult to get accommodation after the war, you know. So I decided to divide the house up into flats and let them out. Then years later when your mother decided to go off and get married, I sold the little house we’d been living in and moved into one of the flats myself - where the kitchen is now. Then the bedsit beside that became available so I knocked the two of them into one. And as luck would have it, just before you came to live with me, didn’t the flats across the hall become vacant? And so I took them, jigged things about a bit and, well, now do you see?’
In all the years I’d lived in Pembroke Road I’d never seen her behave like a landlady. Nor had she ever been treated like one. I couldn’t remember one single tenant ever knocking on our door to complain about a leaky tap or make an excuse about late rent. The only explanation I could think of was - poor old Nonna was losing her marbles.
When we got back to Pembroke Road she tottered off to her bedroom and came back with a box of files stuffed with correspondence from a management company that for years had been taking care of the house and its tenants on her behalf. ‘Now do you believe me?’ she said.
I thought of all the winter afternoons I had come home from school to find her sitting in her overcoat waiting for me to appear before she’d put on a heater or put a match to the fire. Or worse, the days when she would come to walk me home through the swanky roads of Ballsbridge, her stooping under trees to pick up twigs and sticks for the fire, me ready to melt with shame. And the row of jars on the shelf in her wardrobe - one for copper, one for silver - and how when each one was filled it would be changed to notes and stuffed into a stocking that she called a money-tuck. And when that could take no more it was transferred to what she used to call her ‘little pin-money account’. Some pin money, Nonna!
I handed her back the box of files. ‘And I always thought we were poor,’ I said to her. ‘All the time poor. I used to think Dad was tight and only spent money on ice cream and show-off outings when he came to visit once in a blue moon, that he never sent anything otherwise, that it was my fault we were always short. I used to feel so guilty about that.’
‘Ah no. Your father always sent his money, every month of his working life.’
‘My God, Nonna, you’re a miser! That’s it - isn’t it?’
She shifted her shoulders defensively, her face a little pink. ‘You’ll be glad one day. When I’m gone and that other fella leaves you.’
‘He’s not going to leave me. We’re getting married. I told you, as soon as the divorce comes through.’
‘You’ll be glad, because some day it will be all you have. But it will be all yours to have, Anna.’
‘You’ve already bought me a flat, Nonna, you don’t have to give me your house as well.’
‘Ah, who else would I give it to?’
We both sulked quietly for a few moments, and then Nonna spoke again. ‘Something I learned a long time ago, Anna.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll never really be lost when you have your own few bob. You’ll always find somewhere to go.’
*
This morning as I stand in the hall of Pembroke Road, for the second time in a week, that conversation comes back to me. You’ll never be lost. And it occurs to me that for the first time in my life I am, if not entirely lost, then certainly alone. No boyfriend - if a 35-year-old woman can use that term. Ever since Marty (his surname is gone now), one has replaced another. In school I was always going steady, and later in college the same. Steady - I think I used to love the word, more than the boy.
Should the boy in question, later the man in question, happen to have sisters, or mates with girlfriends, then they would become my temporary pals. Dublin, Belfast, London, Dublin again; it has always been the same scenario. Apart from Shay Foster - and I’m refusing to count him - I’ve never had a one night stand in my life. I’ve never even had to go looking. I have always been asked. And it has never, ever occurred to me to say no.
I’ve come back again to Pembroke Road, because I’m looking for something I didn’t find last time around.
This time I linger. Nonna’s flat may have remained untouched but there have been a few changes to the house itself which I only half heeded the last time I was here. The basement has long since stopped being a photographer’s studio - a private flat now with matchstick blinds and a bowl of polished pebbles in the window. The garden has been flattened by tarmacadam, white lines mark out six parking places; three each side of the granite steps. A sign on the wall says ‘Residents Only’. The railings have been pulled down for access. There is an intercom on the front door, which throws not only a voice upstairs, but also a televised mugshot to go with it. The single shade that used to hang over the light in the hall has been replaced by two rows of spotlights flush to the ceiling. The lino has been peeled off in favour of a varnished wooden floor. There is a plastic grey phone sitting unobtrusively on a table, in place of the big black chunk of tin that used to hang on the wall. There is still junk mail and letters for people who have moved on, scattered all over the floor.
I go into the sitting room, open the curtains, the windows. Then I come back into the hall and unlock the rest of the doors on either side, holding them back with copies of my old children’s encyclopedia. I stand for a while, letting light and air stream from one room to another. The front door opens then: a man and a woman I’ve never seen before. Both throw me a startled look as they step into the cross draught created by all the open doors and windows. A wary half nod then before they continue on up the stairs where I hear them mumble to each other, doubtlessly wondering who the hell I am.
‘What are you gawking at?’ I feel like saying. ‘This is my house. Watch it now or I might just turf you out.’ I have to admit, I like the feel of this small unspoken remark.
After a while I go into my old bedroom. The cerise carpet still there, darker than I remember but maybe that’s down to dust. The rosette wallpaper is a bit on the faded side, a glob of Blu-tack in a few places, from long-ago posters. Everything has been tidied away into boxes. The boxes all labelled: Anna, aged 8-13. Anna, 14-18. Anna, 18-28. And finally Anna, misc.
I can’t bring myself to look inside but can take a guess anyhow: toys, books, photographs, drawings and paintings I’ve done over the years; keepsakes Nonna couldn’t bring herself to throw out.
‘Ah what the fuck?’ I ask myself out loud. ‘What does it matter? Who she is or isn’t. She loved you, didn’t she? You stupid wagon - just leave her be. Forget it now.’
But I know I can’t do that.
I stretch out on the bed, and for a few minutes watch the morning light on the ceiling, as I used to do, hands behind my head, thinking about this and that. The last time I was here I had gone through this flat with a fine toothcomb and found nothing unusual, just crates of useless ornaments, old clothes, books and handbags with the dry sweet smell of gone-off face powder. The general knick-knackery of a life quietly led. Yet I know it’s not in Nonna’s nature to throw things away. She must have left something. Somewhere.
I hear a noise then, someone on the steps outside. The snip
of the letterbox and a dry shower of falling letters. I sit up and remember.
There was a letter. A couple of weeks after it had been decided to keep Nonna in Portrane. A letter from the matron of the perfect nursing home. No words of regret, no asking after her health. Just a reference to ‘your grandmother’s clothes and other personal items’. A simple request to remove her stuff, which, like herself, had obviously been getting in the way. It could be collected at my earliest convenience. Disgusted, I had torn the letter up in a temper and thrown it in the bin.
A few minutes later and I am down the road in the Waterloo House. The artificial darkness of a morning pub. There’s an open phone directory on one side of me, a vodka and tonic on the other, and I am speaking to the matron of the nursing home. She says she’s sorry but the clothes have been given away some months ago. ‘It was a question of space, Miss Moore, and we hadn’t heard anything from yourself, so.’
‘I’ve been away, working in the States, I just forgot all about it.’
‘Yes, I understand. However—’
‘However, matron?’
‘Yes, there was a box of papers and a few other things - I’m just looking at a note of it here in the book we keep for unclaimed items - now, that would be up in the attic. If you could give me a few hours or better even a few days?’
‘I’ll be there this afternoon,’ I say.
*
By the time I reach St Ita’s the hospital day is all but over. ‘Oh God. You’re really late today,’ Thelma squeals as she opens the door to the ward.
‘I know. Had a few things to do first. No change I suppose?’
‘Never is. I’m off for a smoke - comin’?’
‘I’ll follow you, Thelma,’ I say, ‘just want to say hello to herself.’
‘S.B. - wha’?’ Thelma laughs softly as she always does since she first heard me call Nonna this name.
‘That’s right, Sleeping Beauty.’
It’s not yet seven o’clock but the blinds are drawn in the ward, and the night light is on and someone down the far end of the room is quietly wailing for God.
I take my seat. There’s a new arrival in the next bed where Mrs Clarke used to be. I don’t look at the face, but can tell it belongs to another mover and shaker; constant fingers plucking on the downturn of the sheet and feet hard at it under the bedspread.
And there’s Nonna, statue-still, out for the count, and not coming back to me anytime soon. I decide to go for it.
‘I’m not going to read to you today, Nonna, because I want to talk to you instead. I mean properly talk.’
I take off my coat, fold it behind my chair and lean in: ‘Listen, I’ve been thinking a lot about Pembroke Road lately. Actually, I’ve been over to see it, last week, and again today. And I noticed that you haven’t rented out our old flat or done it up either. It hasn’t been touched since you left it. Then it dawned on me, Nonna, that maybe you kept it like that, well - for me. In case I needed it or that. And I hope I’m right, Nonna, because I do. Need it, I mean. So.’
I wait a moment or two, get up and rearrange the top of her locker, pour myself a glass of water and sit back down again.
‘You see the problem is, Nonna, because none of us know - not me, the doctors, God, probably not even yourself - how long you’re going to stay in there, wherever you are, well, I’ve got to make the decision. And I’ve decided. Yes. I’ve definitely decided. That I’m going to sublet my place on North Great George’s, maybe even sell it after a while, and move back into Pembroke Road. Until I can decide what to do with my life. I hope that’s OK now with you. I don’t want to be presumptuous and I’ll have to take it that you don’t mind. But. Well, I just need to do something. Put one leg over the fence, as you used to say. Hope the rest of me follows, eh?’ I feel my throat tighten and so I drink more water and then slowly continue.
‘I think. I think it will make me better, if I live someplace else. I’m not sick or anything, not in the usual sense. But - I still need to get better. If I go home, Nonna - you know?’ I’m crying a little now, and I can see the flinty glint of eyeball from the patient in the bed next door, watching me. I wipe my eyes with my hand and stand up.
‘By the way, Nonna, I collected a few things belonging to you today from that nursing home, remember that place? Now, I don’t want you worrying. What I find, I find. I won’t care or fuss about it. I promise. I won’t think any less of you or anyone else. I’ll let you know how I get on, eh, Nonna? I’ll let you know that.’
I put the glass back, take a baby brush out of the mouth of the locker, and fix Nonna’s hair, which though thinning is still thick enough. In this light its colour is shocking white.
God, that bloody smoking room. It’s empty when I go in and gratefully I sit down. I choose a wooden stool, rather than one of those armchairs that start me scratching the minute I look at them. There’s a coffee table with a selection of old Sunday supplements or out-of-date housewifey magazines, which used to amuse me, but which I no longer read since opening a page and finding a big lump of phlegm embedded into a knitting pattern. The cushions on the armchairs show bulges of orange foam through the flowery stretch-nylon covers. They have curved wooden arms with most of the varnish scraped off by names that have come and gone over the years: Pete. Jeannie. Mairead. Turlough. Milly. Aine. Jonathan. There is a heart carved into one, with ‘I luv ?‘ written in it. A child of Prague with his young head on old shoulders stands on the window ledge. And there’s a J.F. Kennedy plate on the wall that makes him look as if he has Down’s Syndrome. The ashtray is stuffed with cigarette ends; more are spread over the upside-down lid of an old biscuit tin on the floor. It stinks in here; you could scrape the nicotine off the walls.
I’m halfway through my cigarette and thinking about getting up to go when Thelma comes in carrying one of those lopsided trays made in the arts and craft class, with three mugs of tea on it, and one bun on a plate. The bun is for me. Thelma insists. She’s already had four. But the staff nurse said it was all right. Mr Carroll will never eat them anyway and she doesn’t want them left hanging around in case they bring in more mice.
The owner of the third mug then struggles in behind Thelma. And I see it’s Mona, the aptly named tea lady. Mona’s son is collecting her after work and it’s getting dark and looking like rain, so I take her offer of a lift as far as the bus stop in Portrane. Even the way she makes this offer sounds like a lament. Then she pulls a single cigarette out of her overall pocket, plumps it into shape and lights it up. And she’s off: her feet are bleedin’ killin’ her, the neck as stiff as a board. Her next-door neighbour has cancer. ‘Doesn’t even smoke, I wouldn’t mind.’ Mona says this as if it’s an unfair world that the neighbour has cancer and she hasn’t - after all the trouble she’s gone to puffing on her forty a day.
Thelma tuts with sympathy and makes little heartfelt suggestions to ease Mona’s hardships:
‘A hot-water bottle! I hear that’s great for a sore neck.’
‘A basin of salty water - that’s the man for the feet.’
‘Do you know now what you should do - put honey in your tea! You’ll never feel tired again.’
But Mona is not interested in Thelma or her prescriptions. ‘Do you know what it is?’ Mona says to me. ‘There’s days I do be that knackered I swear I could climb into bed with one of them loonies out there, and not care if I never get up out of it again.’ She takes a pull of smoke, then darts a look at me. ‘Oh God, sorry, love, I’m sorry. No offence.’
‘You’re grand,’ I say.
‘No change with your poor granny?’ she asks me then, putting one cigarette out while accepting a fresh one from me.
I shake my head.
‘God love her all the same. Doesn’t be a peep out of her these days.’
‘Not a dickie bird!’ Thelma confirms.
‘And she was a great one there for a while, yapping on like I don’t know what - wasn’t she, Thel?’
‘Oh yea.’
�
��She’d be going goodo there before she’d the stroke.’ She leans over, tips me on the arm, casting a vague wink and a twitch of her lips towards Thelma as if warning me to say nothing right now. ‘That other business. I have to tell you, I thought that was a bloody disgrace. I mean how that happened, it’s beyond the beyond. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Rabbitin’ on,’ Thelma says. ‘So she was, S.B. Rabbitin.’
‘Ah no,’ Mona says. ‘Not always. Be fair now. You could have the odd conversation with her like. Sometimes she used to even speak Eyetalian.’
‘Yea?’ I say.
‘Ask me how I know that, go on, ask me.’
‘How do you know that, Mona?’
‘Didn’t I used to work in Macari’s. The chipper on the Malahide Road?’
‘Right.’
‘She’s not Eyetalian but - is she?’
‘No. She lived there for a while, when she was younger.’
‘Ahhhh, that explains it. Handy little number it was, working in the chipper. But me ankles like, with all that standing. And I usedn’t be able to breathe, the steam and that you know, brings on me asthma.’
‘I can imagine.’
Thelma touches the tray. ‘You never ate your bun,’ she says to me.
‘You know, I’m not really hungry, Thelma - would you like it?’
‘All right.’
‘Ah, ah, fatso,’ Mona says. ‘I thought you were cutting down? Ten Ton Tessie, if you don’t start watching it, you. Do you hear me now?’ Then she looks over at me again. ‘Do you know what I often meant to ask you?’
‘What?’
‘Who’s Alec?’
‘Alec?’
‘Is he your little brother?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Well, I reckoned he’s a kid anyhow. She used to be on about him sometimes. You know the way they do. Askin’ after people you wouldn’t know. But you don’t like to be ignoring them either and so you humour them along a bit.’
‘What sort of things would she say?’
Last Train from Liguria (2010) Page 23