This Is Now

by Ciara Geraghty

  ‘What is it for?’ said Mathilde with no great conviction that it was for anything in particular.

  ‘Today is for living.’

  ‘Have you been reading the Little Book of Calm?’ Mathilde asked.

  ‘Christ, no,’ said Martha. ‘I just mean ... we’re taking the bull by the horns today.’

  ‘What bull?’

  ‘I’ll explain in the car.’

  ‘On the way to the airport?’

  ‘I have lemons,’ declared Martha. Mathilde looked confused.

  ‘I’d say you’d love hot lemon water, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Just a hunch.’

  It was rush hour. Inside the car, the two women sat in silence as they inched along, Mathilde occasionally sighing and checking her watch, while Martha couldn’t help noticing buds swelling at the tips of tree branches. She also neglected to shake her fist or gesticulate with her fingers at drivers whom she considered dangerously stupid. Not because she didn’t consider them dangerously stupid – she did – but this morning, she felt disinclined to display her annoyance.

  In fact, she didn’t feel annoyed. She put it down to the feeling that persisted inside her. The not-quite-euphoric.

  At the airport roundabout, Martha turned left instead of right.

  ‘You have turned left instead of right,’ said Mathilde, stiffening in her seat.

  ‘This is a shortcut,’ said Martha.

  ‘We are going in the opposite direction to the airport.’

  ‘Technically, it’s more of a detour than a shortcut.’

  With the airport traffic behind them now, Martha accelerated.

  ‘We are driving towards the hospital,’ said Mathilde, examining the dashboard as if she were looking for the eject button.

  ‘You have a great sense of direction,’ Martha said.

  ‘You are diverting me with compliments.’

  ‘Is it working?’

  ‘Pull over!’

  ‘I will. When we get to the hospital.’

  Mathilde leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Perhaps Tara had told her about Martha’s stubborn streak.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Martha parked and turned off the engine. She turned towards Mathilde. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I was asked to write an article on regret and I wasn’t going to do it but now I am.’

  Mathilde shrugged. ‘I am going to miss my flight.’

  ‘And the reason I’m going to do it is because I know a lot about it.’

  ‘I will have to buy another ticket at the airport.’

  ‘And if I don’t frogmarch you back to the hospital to talk to Tara, I’ll regret that too. And so will you.’

  ‘You cannot ... frogmarch me,’ said Mathilde, but doubt flickered in her widening eyes as her pupils dilated. Perhaps Tara had mentioned Martha’s unnatural physical strength.

  Martha stepped out of the car, closed the door behind her and was on her way around to the passenger side when Mathilde tumbled out of the car, both hands in front of her, in a halt action. ‘OK,’ she said, backing away from Martha. ‘OK.’

  Martha, glancing behind every now and then to check Mathilde’s progress, strode through the main doors of the hospital, past the reception desk, towards the lift, where she slapped the call button with the heel of her hand.

  ‘This will not make any difference,’ said Mathilde, perhaps braver now that there were people around.

  Martha stepped inside the lift, pulling Mathilde in after her, punched the button for the fourth floor and glared at a doctor in green scrubs who teetered at the doors before stepping back, mumbling something about going down, not up.

  Mathilde slumped against the wall of the lift, eyed Martha cautiously. ‘What is your plan?’ she said.

  ‘I appear to be making it up as I go along.’

  They rode the lift to the fourth floor in silence.

  The lift doors pinged and Martha stepped into the corridor and said, ‘Follow me,’ in a low, set voice, like she was a modern-day evangelist on a recruitment offensive.

  Mathilde did.

  Martha stopped outside the door to Tara’s room. Hesitated.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ Mathilde whispered, looking furtive.

  ‘We’re going to storm the Bastille,’ said Martha. She pulled the door open, rushed into the room, pulling Mathilde behind her.

  ‘What do you think you are—?’ Mrs Bolton sat on a chair beside the bed where Tara lay, seemingly asleep, her lank hair draped across the pillow. Mrs Bolton set her knitting on the bedside locker and glared at them.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Bolton,’ Martha said, in what she felt was a perfectly reasonable voice. ‘We’ve come to get Tara.’

  Katherine, whom Martha saw now on the other side of the room, put herself between Martha and the bed, like a dam. ‘Martha, I know this is difficult but the doctor said that Tara needs—’

  ‘What do you mean get me?’ Tara looked so frail as she struggled into a sitting position. Martha hardened her resolve, dragged Mathilde out from behind her.

  ‘It’s time,’ said Martha, eyeballing Tara so that she knew exactly what she meant.

  ‘No!’ Tara did her best to shout but the word dribbled out instead, like food from the corner of a baby’s mouth. She groped for the oxygen mask on her bedside table, breathed deeply into it and held it there with a white-knuckled hand.

  Mrs Bolton rushed to her daughter’s side and put a protective arm around her shoulder. ‘You have to go,’ she said in a high, shrill voice. ‘Katherine, escort Martha and ... whoever that is out, please.’

  Tara covered her face with her hands so she could not see Mathilde’s face, falling like a brick thrown from a height.

  Katherine approached Martha carefully, as if she were a security guard approaching an unattended piece of luggage at the airport.

  ‘We should leave.’ Mathilde tugged at Martha’s sleeve.

  Martha, who still had no plan, sidestepped Katherine and rushed towards the bed. Katherine spun around and Mrs Bolton clutched Tara to her chest as Martha reached for the oxygen mask and reefed it off Tara’s face. She grabbed Tara’s arm and played a brief game of tug-of-war with Mrs Bolton, who conceded after a few short seconds, allowing Martha to hook her fingers into Tara’s armpits and pull. Through the flimsy material of Tara’s nightdress, she could feel stubble, which shocked her to the core, but she kept pulling, despite a cacophonous background of screeching (Katherine and Mrs Bolton), wailing (Tara) and crying (Mathilde). Martha propped Tara against a wall, held her there by her shoulders and waited. Tara’s cheeks were flushed and her breath was coming fast but not panic-attack fast. Just pulled-out-of-bed-unceremoniously fast.

  Martha was breathing fast too. She struggled to control it.

  The room was quiet for a moment.

  ‘Tara?’ Mrs Bolton whispered, standing up and peering at her daughter. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Martha said, matter-of-fact. ‘She just needs to tell you something.’

  She looked at Tara. Smiled. ‘Don’t you?’

  Tara looked resigned, possibly sensing that Martha had dragged them all past the point of no return. Way past. Still, she said nothing.

  ‘Do you want me to tell them?’ Martha asked.

  Tara nodded.

  Martha lifted her hands from Tara’s shoulders, waited a moment, but Tara showed no signs of falling. Then she turned so she could see the others. Cleared her throat. She wondered how to begin. She thought brevity would be best.

  ‘Tara is gay.’ Behind her she could hear Tara hold her breath. ‘And she’s in love with Mathilde.’ Martha gestured towards the Frenchwoman. ‘And I’m fairly sure Mathilde is in love with her, which is ... well, it’s lovely, isn’t it? I mean, nobody wants to love somebody who doesn’t love them back. Do they?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Mrs Bolton.

  ‘And while we’re all getting things off our chests, I’d
also like to say ...’ Martha took a breath ‘ ... I am an alcoholic and I went to my first AA meeting last night with Seamus the barman from the Pound.’

  She looked from Mrs Bolton to Katherine to Mathilde to Tara and she knew she was smiling because of the ache of the muscles in her face. Nobody said anything. Martha felt she should add something. Some form of conclusion. ‘So that’s it, really. Just thought it was about time that you knew. About Tara. Being gay, I mean. And me. Although I realise it’s not really anything to do with you. I mean, it won’t affect you personally. Me being in the AA now. But still, I thought it best to say it out loud so I can’t, you know, change my mind when I ... when things get back to normal. You know?’

  Now Mrs Bolton spoke. ‘My daughter is most certainly not gay. Don’t you think a mother would know something like that? She is suffering from post-traumatic—’

  ‘I’m not, Mum.’ It was Tara, her voice quiet. ‘It’s true, I’m in love with Mathilde.’ She looked at Mathilde and Martha could see a shine of tears in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Mathilde. I’ve been so ... pathetic.’

  Mathilde smiled through her tears, her mascara forming fine dark lines down her face. ‘I was scared too. It was Martha who made me come back,’ she managed to say.

  ‘I merely suggested—’ began Martha.

  ‘You were right about her,’ said Mathilde. ‘Everything you said was true.’ She stumbled towards Tara, threw herself into her arms and they hugged and it was Tara who put her hands around the small heart of Mathilde’s face and kissed her.

  ‘You don’t smell great,’ Mathilde said when Tara released her.

  Mrs Bolton sat on the edge of the bed, clamped the oxygen mask to her face and breathed into it.

  Katherine threw her eyes to heaven and began folding Tara’s belongings into an overnight bag she slid out from under the bed.

  Martha slipped from the room and drove home, still not inclined to shout or gesticulate with her fingers at dangerously stupid drivers. She knew it would return, this inclination. That not all of the days that lay ahead would be like today.

  Some days would be like yesterday. When the mistakes you’ve made are held up to the light so you can see them in all their ragged splendour.

  She knew that. How close she had come.

  Back in her apartment, Martha made tea and switched on her laptop. She emailed the editor of the Irish Times Magazine.

  Do you still want me to do that article on regret?

  Twenty minutes later. If you can deliver the copy by close of play today, yes. Otherwise, no.

  Martha sat in front of the blank page for a while. Then she turned the laptop off and went into her bedroom, opened the wardrobe door. On the floor, near the back, was her father’s old Remington and, beside it, a box of A4 pages and some carbon paper. She hauled everything out, arranged them on the kitchen table. She fed the paper into her father’s typewriter and, with her forefinger, banged out the word Regret at the top centre of the page, pressed the carriage return lever twice and began to type.

  It was one of those rare pieces of writing that flowed from the start. She was a blur of fingers, pounding on the keys, the carriage shuddering along, left to right, turning letters into words that poured onto the page like they were already written some place inside, and it was just a matter of letting them go.

  Twenty Nine

  Cillian parked outside his rented house in Mount Charles, sat there for a moment letting the engine idle. It felt strange, being back. The house looked like someone else’s house, some place that Cillian was visiting, not returning to.

  ‘There’s a job here for you, beanpole,’ the Super had said as Cillian cleared out his desk. ‘You don’t have to go haring back to that culchie-infested outpost you know.’

  ‘Have you ever even been to Donegal?’

  ‘Why the fuck would I go there?’

  Cillian put his Dalek mug into the box, the framed photograph of Naoise on the climbing frame that he had made for him, the bottle of whiskey the lads had given him as a leaving gift.

  ‘I’ve stuff to sort out,’ Cillian said, closing the box, ‘in Donegal.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  Cillian shrugged. ‘Just ... you know, personal stuff.’

  The Super examined his fingernails, cleared his throat. ‘So. I see Jimmy’s solicitor is singin’ like an X-Factor hopeful.’

  The Super was a covert X-Factor fan, although everybody knew about it.

  Cillian nodded. ‘He’s been a wealth of information alright. And Lenny of course. Once he got a sniff of a deal.’

  ‘How’s the boy? Roman?’

  ‘A lot better. Judge Cassidy says she’ll hold a restorative hearing when Roman gets out of hospital, which should be in a couple of days. She’ll be recommending a caution and a period of supervision but she’ll be sending him home.’ Cillian picked up the box, moved towards the door. ‘I won’t say goodbye, boss, I know how emotional you get.’

  The Super grunted.

  Outside the station, there were still a few journalists, although a lot fewer than before.

  ‘It’s a media frenzy out there,’ Clancy had said when the news first broke about Tobias Hartmann.

  Then he darted to the jacks again, to comb his hair with his fingers.

  In a way, Cillian thought it was a good thing. That Tobias hadn’t lived to see his life splattered across the media the way it had been these past few days. They had camped outside the nursing home where Rosa worked too, desperate for the story of her relationship with the famous artist. Cillian had seen her on the telly, picking her way through them, smiling with her mouth closed, telling them nothing. It didn’t stop them telling the story anyway. She was his muse. His lover. Or perhaps she was his daughter. Or his granddaughter.

  The speculation was endless.

  Cillian lifted his suitcase out of the boot, carried it to the front door and shoved his hand in his jeans pocket, reaching for the key. He unlocked the door, pushed it wide with his foot as he bent to pick up his case.

  He stepped inside the house, walked down the hall, opened the door into the sitting room and was nearly blown backwards by a great chorus of ‘SURPRISE!’

  It took him a moment to focus. There were people in his house. A lot of people. Crammed together like spectators at a match.

  Not just people. They were Stella’s people. Her parents, her sisters, her sisters’ husbands, her sisters’ fiancés, her sisters’ children. They wore identical T-shirts bearing the words WELCOME HOME CILLIAN with a smiley face beneath.

  Stella ran to him, her arms outstretched, wrapped herself around him, whispered, ‘I’m so glad you’re home,’ her mouth wet against his neck.

  ‘Well,’ he said, setting his suitcase on the floor and gently extricating himself from her grip. ‘This is ... an unexpected –’

  ‘I knew you’d love a surprise party,’ said Stella. ‘We’re all just so delighted to have you back. We wanted to do something special.’ She beamed at him.

  ‘Great ... good ... but ... how did you manage to get in?’

  Now it was Stella’s turn to look surprised. ‘My cousin owns the house, remember?’ Stella said. ‘I got the key off him. Now come on in. Go and say hello to everyone and I’ll dish up. I’ve made that curry you like. The makhani, remember?’

  Makhani? He’d never heard of it.

  They bore down on him, all seven of them – Saoirse, Susan, Sarah, Sorcha, Selene, Sadie and ... he couldn’t remember ... oh, yes, Sam, short for Samantha – taking turns to hug him and shake his hand and pat him on the shoulder.

  ‘This is a double celebration really,’ Stella’s mother said, her voice quavering with emotion, ‘what with young Brendan finally popping the question.’ That’s what Stella had rung him about, that day, outside Jimmy’s house. That had been her news. That the politician had finally popped the question and Sadie had said yes, and the size of the wedding they were planning – huge because Brendan wanted to invite as many of his c
onstituents as Lough Eske Castle could accommodate – and how Stella would have to go home immediately, to help Sadie plan the engagement party and ...

  It had taken Cillian a good while to find a gap in her monologue. ‘I thought you might be ringing about the ... did you do the test yet?’

  ‘The test? Oh, goodness, yes. I mean, no, I didn’t. What with all the excitement. And I seem to have come down with one of my kidney infections and they are notorious for interfering with those tests. Sam got a false negative with one last year, when she had the same thing. We’re all prone to them, I’m afraid. Bad genes, hahaha.’

  ‘So when you do think you might ...?’

  ‘Dr Doherty will sort me out with a prescription for antibiotics when I get back home. But, look, don’t be worrying, darling. Whatever’s for us won’t pass us, as Mammy says.’

  Cillian bit back his frustration while Stella supplied further details about the upcoming nuptials of Sadie Bennett and the outgoing TD Brendan Doherty.

  That was four days ago. Three more days of the antibiotics left to go.

  Eventually, Cillian managed to squeeze his way into the kitchen at the back of the house, which was overrun mostly with the husbands and fiancés of the Bennett sisters.

  ‘I’d say you’re looking for a beer,’ said Mr Bennett, winking at him. ‘You’ve the look of a desperate man about you, am I right?’ Mr Bennett struggled through the crowd, opened the back door and dipped his hand inside a bin Cillian had never seen before, filled with ice and beer.

  ‘She thinks of everything, our Stella,’ he said, handing a bottle to Cillian. He nudged Cillian’s ribs with the hard bone of his elbow, then stretched his neck up, towards Cillian’s face, whispered, ‘You could do a lot worse.’ Another wink and he disappeared, having been pulled by his wife into the sitting room where a singsong was getting up.

  An actual singsong.

  Cillian leaned against the fridge. Closed his eyes. Tried to block out the din.

  His phone rang and he picked it out of his jeans pocket.

  ‘Just checking you arrived in one piece.’ It was Joan. She had a thing about journeys. Always wanted to know when they were over.