‘It’s so unlike anything else out there. Who are your influences?’ Malachy peered again at the drawing.
‘My influences?’
‘I mean, what other artists do you admire?’
Tobias remembered his mother then. How she illustrated her stories with sketches. The blur of pencil in her hand, the worlds she created for them. He shook his head. ‘Nobody you would have heard of,’ he said.
Tobias wrote down the telephone number of the shop and Malachy promised to call when he had news, which he declared would be sooner rather than later.
Tobias smiled when Malachy left. Artist! Oliver Cassidy, who owned the furniture shop on Capel Street, would get a kick out of that. Scribbles. That’s what Oliver called them. When he liked one, he asked Tobias if he traced it from a book, then laughed his donkey-bray laugh before taking the chessboard down from the press in Tobias’s bedsit and setting it up on the footstool they set between them.
‘Tobias?’
‘Mary?’ He strained towards the voice, struggled to lift the lids of his eyes.
He saw her face. Older now, her dark hair shorter and streaked with grey. Lines around her navy eyes, deepening with the beauty of her smile.
A sound then. Like an alarm ringing. High-pitched and urgent, it surged against him, like a tide.
A door thrown open, the hot air lying like a rough blanket over him stirring now, lifting like a weight, and there was freedom in it and he could feel himself lifting too. Coming away.
He thought Rosa might be there. He smelled her familiar lily-of-the-valley smell, and he breathed her in and the scent brought his mother to him as surely as if it were she who had opened the door, stepped inside.
‘You said you’d be back soon,’ she whispered. Her hand on his forehead was soft and cool.
Voices now, all around him. He could hear the nurse. The furious rattle of her trolley, the flat smack of her rubber soles against the floor. ‘Get Mr Ryan,’ she barked. Her huge, fleshy hands on him now. On the withered folds of his neck, her fingers pushing against the jugular, feeling for him there.
‘Goddamnit, where’s the crash team?’
‘They’re coming.’
‘What’s keeping them?’
A weight now, pushing down on his chest, rhythmical, almost soothing. He reached inside himself, like someone leaving a house, glancing into each room, switching the lights off as he moved towards the door. He hesitated there, the metal of the handle cool in his hand, the door ajar.
‘We’re losing him.’ There was angry frustration in the nurse’s voice. She was not the kind of woman who lost people, Tobias felt. Not that kind of nurse. He wanted to tell her it was alright.
It wasn’t her fault.
It was just his time.
It had been a long time coming.
He felt heavy with effort and yet curiously light at the same time, like the white, fluffy dandelion seeds Bruno and Lars used to blow on, scatter them to the air, watch them lift away.
Now he could feel the gentle weight of Rosa’s thin arms gathering around his neck, the tickle of her hair, unrestrained by its habitual plait, against the worn-out skin of his face. He could taste the salt of her tears. Tobias wanted to tell her not to feel sad. He did not feel sad. He was grateful. That she had been his friend. He wished he had told her that.
He could feel himself moving now towards the small square of window. Outside, the light was fading. He saw the pale outline of the moon, struggling to make its presence felt as the lowering sun threw the last of her colours against the palette of the sky.
Twenty Six
Mathilde never rang Martha. Nor did she respond to the email Martha had deliberated over. Instead, she appeared, like Napoleon from the island of Elba.
Martha was holed up in her apartment, writing, with scant attention to day or night, her novel gushing out of her now like blood from an open wound.
She heard a noise.
It sounded like a stone hitting her window.
Pesky kids, she muttered, lifting her laptop off her knees and tossing it onto the oversized sofa. She strode into the kitchen, thrust her head out the window and noticed that she was not alone. The heads of a number of her neighbours also poked from various windows across the facade of the building, like gargoyles. Martha looked down.
On the manicured lawn at the front of the building stood a petite brunette, wearing a long cashmere coat over a baggy T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, tucked into Ugg boots. Beside her, an overnight bag. Her hands were filled with stones.
‘Mathilde?’ She recognised her from the photograph that Tara had shown her. That seemed like a long time ago now.
‘Martha?’ Mathilde’s voice was much louder and deeper than her petite frame would suggest. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes. What are you doing here?’
‘You told me to come. In your email.’
‘Martha, will you let the poor girl in? She’s half-frozen.’ This from Robert-Call-Me-Rob on the floor below. From her vantage point, Martha could see the widening circle of the bald patch he hid under various beanies. She looked at Mathilde. ‘Press the buzzer, Mathilde. I’m number thirteen.’
‘The buzzer’s out of whack,’ yelled the head of the residents’ association, Ben Ryan, on the ground floor. ‘I’ve sent a strongly worded letter to the management company and I ...’ Martha had forgotten about the buzzer.
‘I’m coming down,’ Martha shouted over him, withdrawing her head from the window. Ben had a tendency to monologue when he got hold of a captive audience. She threw her parka over her T-shirt and knickers, pushed her feet into a pair of runners and ran down the stairs.
Outside, Robert-Call-Me-Rob – his head still sticking out his apartment window – was taking his chances. ‘France, I’ll wager. Yes? I actually speak a leetle French, as it happens, zut alors, heh heh ...’ Mathilde did not laugh. Her expression was one of curiosity, as if she were trying to work out where his Off button was.
‘Come inside.’ Martha picked up Mathilde’s bag. It was light. Inside the apartment, Mathilde looked around, taking everything in, making Martha aware of how messy the place was. She cleared plates and cups from the couch and motioned for Mathilde to sit, which she did, after which she fixed Martha with an expectant look.
‘When did you arrive?’ Martha managed.
‘I came straight from the airport,’ Mathilde said. Another expectant look.
‘And ... where are you staying?’
Mathilde looked puzzled. ‘With you, of course. You said I should come as soon as possible.’
‘Right. You’re right. I did say that.’
‘Where shall I sleep?’ Mathilde asked.
‘I have a ... spare room,’ said Martha, picking up Mathilde’s bag again. ‘I’ll just ... I’ll be right back.’ She hurried into the spare room and dropped Mathilde’s bag on the floor. While she was positive there was a bed in the room, it had been a good six months since Martha had seen it, covered as it was with books, clothes, shoes, printer cartridges that she intending recycling some day, ancient out-of-date technology – there was a Sony Walkman in there somewhere, she was sure – and a box of instruction manuals that she had never read.
She backed towards the wall, leaned against it, closed her eyes. She was not used to houseguests. The door opened and there stood Mathilde, tiny yet somehow larger than life.
‘If you give me sheets and a duvet, I will make the bed,’ Mathilde said, nodding towards the vague possibility of a bed under the detritus. ‘You can make us some peppermint tea.’
‘Right. Oh, except I don’t have peppermint tea.’
‘Really?’ Mathilde looked surprised at this statement.
‘I have Polo mints. I could infuse them in hot water?’
Mathilde gave this some consideration, then said, ‘I will have camomile instead.’
Martha took fresh bed linen out of the hot press then returned to the kitchen, where she found some camomile teabags – left behind by
Dan and well past their best-before date.
She threw the last of her Fig Rolls onto a plate and tried not to resent Mathilde when she ate all of them.
‘This is a nice apartment,’ Mathilde said when she stopped chewing. ‘Do you live alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I like being alone.’
‘Nobody likes being alone.’
Martha opened her mouth to argue, then nodded instead. ‘I’m difficult to live with.’
Mathilde nodded. ‘Yes, Tara mentioned that.’
The cheek!
‘So,’ said Martha. ‘What’s your plan?’
Mathilde straightened. Took out a notebook, opened a page where she had written a list of at least – Martha craned her neck – four bullet points. At the head of the list, in capital letters and underlined – twice – were the words À Faire which Martha guessed was the French version of a to-do list. Mathilde was trailing down the list with one of her tiny fingers. When she got to the third bullet point she stopped. Read out loud. ‘We go to the hospital where Tara will tell her family about her and I, after which I shall accept her apology and agree to a reconciliation.’
‘Right,’ said Martha. ‘Well, that all sounds very ... feasible.’
‘You are making fun of me?’
‘Maybe a little.’
Mathilde nodded her tiny head. ‘Tara said you use humour to disguise your insecurities.’
‘Jesus, did she say anything good about me?’
‘She did,’ said Mathilde. Martha waited but Mathilde said nothing further on the subject.
‘What’s the fourth bit of your plan?’ Martha couldn’t help asking.
Mathilde closed her notebook. ‘That is a private matter,’ she said.
Martha looked at her watch. ‘Visiting hours are nearly over at the—’
‘Then we should leave immediately.’
They drove mostly in silence to the hospital. Martha was not especially gifted in the art of small talk and Mathilde, it seemed, only spoke when she had something to say. ‘Your car smells of cigarettes.’
‘Would you like one?’
‘No. Thank you.’
Visiting hours had just finished by the time they parked and made their way into the main foyer of the hospital.
‘You can come back tomorrow,’ said a woman behind the reception desk, barely glancing at them.
Mathilde shook her head. ‘I cannot come back tomorrow. I am returning to London in the morning.’ Part of Martha felt relieved at this announcement. She would be alone again, in her apartment, where she could be as difficult to live with as she liked.
‘Why are you leaving so soon?’ Martha asked her.
Mathilde shook her head. ‘I cannot make myself available to Tara indefinitely. She knows how I feel. And now it is time for her to tell me how she feels. To show me. Today.’
The woman behind the desk continued tapping her fingers against a keyboard.
Martha wanted to shake both of them.
‘Hello, Martha.’ It was Joan, who was on her way out of the hospital. ‘You’re here late. Everything alright?’
Martha looked at Joan. She didn’t want to involve her. The woman had probably just completed a twelve-hour shift. But Mathilde was standing there, her arms tightly crossed, her face impassive, waiting for the clock to strike twelve after which she would flee, like Cinderella, except she would bring both shoes with her. She would leave nothing behind and Tara would be devastated and become more depressed and ...
‘Is there any chance that you could get us in to see Tara?’ Martha said. ‘The receptionist says visiting hours are over but Mathilde here has come a long way and she—’
Joan shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Martha, they’re especially strict about visiting hours in cases like Tara’s.’
Martha glanced at Mathilde who remained mutinously mute. Martha turned back to Joan, tried again. ‘It’s just ... I think it might do Tara some good. I really do.’
Joan hesitated, frowned.
‘I was speaking to Cillian about it the other day,’ Martha continued. ‘He thought it might make all the difference to Tara. A visit from Mathilde.’
‘I’ll make a phone call,’ said Joan, sighing. She could never say no where Cillian was concerned.
Martha allowed herself to hope. She smiled at Mathilde, who had uncrossed her arms and was maybe even entertaining hopeful thoughts herself. But Joan, when she returned, shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, ladies, I did my best. Mrs Bolton told me that Tara is trying to get some sleep.’
‘Did you tell her I was here?’ said Mathilde, confusion spreading across her small face.
‘I did.’ Joan’s smile was apologetic. ‘Why don’t you come back in the morning? When everyone’s fresher.’
Back in the car, Mathilde did not cry, or shout, or bang her fist off the dashboard. She was stoic in her acceptance of what she saw as Tara’s rejection. ‘At least I know now where I stand.’
‘You’re wrong, Mathilde. Tara loves you. She told me.’
Mathilde shook her head. ‘Words are easy to say.’
Still, Martha did not start the car. Perhaps some ancient, superstitious part of her believed that once she drove away that would be it. ‘You love her, don’t you?’
‘I’m here, am I not?’ said Mathilde.
‘Yes, but you need to give her some more time, you need—’
‘No,’ said Mathilde, cutting Martha off.
‘Maybe tomorrow, we could ...’ Martha began, but Mathilde shook her head again.
‘I see now that Tara will not change. She will not accept herself. Maybe she will end up marrying a man who works in a bank and has a pension and a share portfolio and they will have babies and the babies will grow up and the man will get fat and bald and wonder why Tara drinks too much, or takes too many pills, or never closes her eyes when she kisses him. He will never know her because she refuses to know herself. To accept herself. She is ashamed of herself and her shame is contagious and I don’t want to catch it. It is like a poison, her shame.’
She looked at Martha, who could think of nothing to say after Mathilde’s bleak pronouncements. ‘I will return to London tomorrow,’ she said, quieter now. ‘At first light. Can you give me a lift to the airport?’
‘When you say first light, were you talking around ten-ish?’
‘I can get a taxi.’
‘No. No, it’s OK. I’ll take you.’
There was nothing more to say so they said nothing, until they reached the outskirts of Swords.
‘Can you stop at a pharmacy?’ Mathilde asked. ‘I need to buy some Rescue Remedy.’
‘Rescue Remedy?’ said Martha, arching an eyebrow. ‘You sure that’s wise?’
Mathilde did not appear to notice Martha’s sarcasm. She merely nodded and concentrated on the road as if she were driving.
Martha parked at the Pavilions, where there was a late-night pharmacy. ‘Will you come in with me?’ asked Mathilde, and her voice was small and uncertain and sad. It tugged at Martha, the sadness. Perhaps because she hadn’t been able to assuage it. Or perhaps because it echoed her own.
She heard a sound then. The crisp click of the seal breaking when you twist the cap off a bottle of gin. Hendrick’s had been her favourite.
‘OK,’ said Martha quickly, dropping the cigarette she had begun rolling into the inside pocket of her bag and pulling the key out of the ignition.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Mathilde, and it reminded Martha of Cillian, who used to ask her the same thing when she was thinking about drinking when she should have been thinking about something else. Anything else.
You alright, Martha?
‘I’m fine,’ said Martha, opening the door. ‘Let’s go.’
Looking back, she wondered if she had stayed in the car, might things have been different? It was difficult to know, when you were retracing your steps, where the first misstep had occurred.
They were the only cust
omers in the chemist’s, which was overheated with too many fluorescent lights. There was a special deal with the Rescue Remedy: it came in a pretty little wicker basket, with a stress ball and the Little Book of Calm.
‘I only want the Rescue Remedy,’ Mathilde told the shop assistant, lifting the bottle out of the basket.
‘But they all come together – it’s a promotion.’
Mathilde pushed the basket with the ball and the book towards the woman behind the counter. ‘I only want this,’ she repeated, holding the Rescue Remedy inches from the assistant’s face.
‘It’s the same price,’ insisted the woman. ‘The other items are free.’
‘I do not want a ball or a basket,’ said Mathilde and her voice had a dangerous edge to it now.
The woman pushed the basket back towards Mathilde, although when she spoke again she addressed Martha, in an almost pleading way. ‘You see, they all come together, I can’t just—’
‘I’ll take the basket,’ said Martha, and when she grabbed it, the ball sailed out and was caught in the hand of a woman who, Martha now noticed, was standing behind them.
‘Oh, I caught it! My boyfriend always calls me a butterfingers, hahaha.’
She had short brown hair and a northern accent. Donegal, Martha thought. With one hand, the woman gave the ball an experimental squeeze. Her other hand held fast to a pregnancy test.
‘Thanks,’ said Martha.
‘I wonder if they work,’ said the woman, handing Martha the ball. ‘Not that I’m stressed or anything, thank goodness, hahaha.’ Her voice had a shrill breathiness to it. The sound of it, with the heat and the harsh lighting and the smell of perfumes jockeying for position, made Martha feel lightheaded and thirsty. She did not reply to the woman, just did her best to smile and nod in her general direction.
She glanced at Mathilde, who was paying by card, and now the sales assistant was rolling her eyes and smiling a smile as bright as the fluorescent lights. ‘Oh, the machine is on a go-slow today. Like the rest of us, eh?’ and then a tinkling laugh and Martha gripped the Little Book of Calm in one hand, the ball in the other, squeezed them both.
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