Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

  She’s angry because her tears are interrupting the details of the documentary and all she’s after these days since Jimmy died is details. If she can pin down the details of his life, there’s more chance she can imagine him alive again. The way the soldiers are strapped into the stand up style plane or helicopter, the green everything, the Tourettey eyes, the fact they don’t seem too fussed, they’re shipping out resigned to what they’ll face. Mostly they don’t know they say, they speculate but they don’t know. They speak acronyms, she notices. She’s surprised to see them stopping in Shannon, staring out the window, no idea where they are, some just continue to play hand held games or they do word search.

  And she’s back imagining her Jimmy on a similar plane at Shannon, with his green-trousered brigade leaning against that window pointing to things. It’s fading now. She can see him pressing his head to the back of the seat, pretending to know nothing about it, maybe pretending not to be of it at all.

  She phones Joanie during the ads of the documentary. How’s she doing there and did she know there were women over there in the army too? Joanie didn’t but sure it doesn’t surprise her. What’s she doing? Watching a program. Does she need a bit of company? Arra no. Well now. Quietly, it’s about soldiers, yes, going to Iraq. She’ll be over to her now, put the kettle on. If you insist on watching it, you shouldn’t be alone for you’ll never sleep after the like of it. When she replaces the phone, she notices how dirty the head of it is from the picking up and dropping and means to clean it. She wonders does Joanie think she’s done something she shouldn’t have in watching the program.

  It’s with her always nowadays such doubt. She’s to tell herself flat that there’s no one can tell her what she can or cannot do. Just because they may think she’s going mad does not mean she’s under contract to deliver it up to them.

  As Joanie and Our Woman watch together they discuss a few things like the mother of the fella in New Jersey. The muslin fella Joanie calls him, mistaking cloth for religion. The mother beside herself, the mother who came from some hot place near by to Iraq, who waves her finger at the camera and beseeches her long departed son to stop punishing her. She did not bring him to this country to give him opportunity to have him go back to her land and occupy it.

  —I know how she feels, Our Woman says after Joanie remarks on the lovely oak table in the woman’s kitchen and the fact she’s wearing a very dark shade of nail varnish.

  —Isn’t it great the women keep themselves looking so well, no matter the stress they’re under, Joanie remarks ignoring her.

  —I know how she feels, Our Woman repeats. She’s this new trick when they talk over her, or by her, they all do it the girls, they mean well but they all do it. Then she breaks down and tells Joanie the truth that it was all her fault for sending Jimmy the adverts. She tells her about college and the fella who visited and Himself whipping the college funds from Jimmy and Joanie’s trying to clarify things with her and she’s foggy again. Why’s Joanie asking is he local? Of course he’s not local. She shrieks at her, He’s over there, he’s over there. He wouldn’t a gone near him if he was local. Where would you find the like of him local?

  It’s all don’t upset yourself when she flies into these confusions and shortly the doctor’s in the house again and she realizes she’ll have to stop telling Joanie anything if it’s all going to end in an injection. To think she considered telling her about Beirut.

  Blood pressure, hup, hup, hup, hiss. Hiss. Hiss. It’s low. Is she dizzy? Has she tested her blood sugar today? Something to help her sleep. He squeezes her hand two times in comfort and she feels like the old woman she is. Old, bereft with people to help her fall asleep.

  The sleep is terrible. Hour after hour she wakes. Confused. Things, objects and colours dart in the darkness, whittle their way into and out of shadows and strangely, boxes. The room, the air of it is covered and divided by boxes within which it’s all movement, disconcerting movement. Lines, colours dance about. She can see small boxes, things tucking into them and the pulse in her neck twangs like a rubber band and the tightness of her chest frightens her. Up she gets to the light, shuffles into the cold bathroom for a glass of water, she doesn’t trust the water, so in to the kitchen for the boiled kettle.

  She sits shivering in a cold you would not contemplate stepping out to unless you risk wetting the bed. She considers swapping the night for day to see would it be easier on her. The red light of the electric blanket is hanging down there beneath the old pink under sheet when she’s back at the bed. She’s tempted to kneel, but what would be the good in kneeling, what did kneeling do ’til now only Jimmy gone and all this disturbance.

  She tries to remember a time when there wasn’t these interruptions and she can’t. The pill, the herbal tea, the Valerian none of it helps. The first time she takes 45 drops of Valerian she falls down a well all night long. With no cars outside and so quiet, the night is an uncomfortable place to be.

  She sticks pictures of soldiers on the inside of her kitchen press doors, believing some of them may have known her Jimmy, one may even have kissed him. There’s one of a bunch sitting around drinking coffee and a man with a guitar. She chooses the door with the bad hinge, that dips a little lower than it should. Sticks them with bluetack. Every time she needs a cup, he’ll look at her. Sometimes she leaves the door open and stares at him, while she’s stirring a pot or pouring the kettle. His eyes pour out at her, they’re the deep brown of conkers and the more she looks at him the more handsome he becomes. They’re spoiled really, the lads in all that green camouflage and clippered hair. They’ve the look of shaved dogs not men. But if you can imagine it all rolled away, all the clip and cap and green just gone, their features come back. He was the sort of fella who probably wore jeans and a burgundy top. She’ll think of him in burgundy it’s best. She names one of them Raphael and she believes he has known her Jimmy intimately. She can talk to him on the door. His image becomes bolder and bolder until she can visualize him moving about. Once she sees him sitting at her table clutching his knees up to his chest awkwardly. Is he saying anything at all? He’s big, Raphael is tall. You’re tall you know. I never thought Jimmy would go for one as tall as you, she confides in him. He’s a snuffly laugh has Raphael, but they like each other. I can see why Jimmy would like looking at ya, you’ve lovely warm eyes. That was my problem she tells him, I chose a man who hadn’t warm enough eyes. He laughs again and says he’s going out the back for a smoke and it’s the draft on her ankles that brings her back. The cold around her legs. Stood there with back door open, in the middle of the quiet night and no one to be seen, least alone the fella she’s been exchanging laughter with.

  But she’ll continue with it. It’s easier, she thinks. If she’s to jump up and down and smother every imagined exchange the hours will be so long, alone here in the house. While she’s chatting to Raphael for any reason you can choose she’s happier and she’s learning, albeit imaginary, about her son’s life.

  Beirut, Beirut, the only other thought in her mind, humming over and over like a psalm. Beirut may have seen Jimmy when he went to his daughter’s wedding. She longs to talk again with Beirut. She wants to climb inside his coat. She wants to hear the stories of the dogs and the women wearing gold sandals with their good strong legs and clear skin. She wants all of it described all over again. Then maybe she can sleep once more the way she used to. A strange thing is somedays she cannot remember whether or not they have buried Jimmy or if he’s still on his way home.

  In Dublin for a day’s shopping, the solution her dead husband prescribed. She smiles to think she’s begun listening to him now he’s passed on. He prompts her to go. Then she hears it, uttered aloud on the bus from Heuston Station, an older woman behind her explaining her daughter, out in Bray, and the council house, they’ve given her, and the state of it, and her daughter up to the counter of the housing office, she told them, she did, she told them straight.

  —It’s like bleedin’ Beirut. I can�
��t live in it.

  —Jaysus, back from the lips beside her. Jaysus it’s a disgrace. Honest to God.

  Our Woman smiles at the reference. Bayroot, Beirut. Which Beirut is it they’re talking of? Is it the same Beirut the man in the hospital went to the wedding in? It’s not, it’s the bombed Beirut. Any Beirut will do. She’s obsessed and besotted with a place she can’t spell. A place another woman identifies as the crater of the earth. A place that a leaking, run down damaged Council house is compared with. A place she wants to go to without having to get off this bus.

  It is after the dullness of Penneys and the buggies banging into her and a look at the duvets downstairs. Duvets, pans and watering cans. All seasons. All leanings. Or maybe it was Dunnes Stores where she saw the watering can. Gardening implements and underwear they’re all melding into one and she’s half hearted in feigning concern over their quality or any desire for them. Picked, turned and merely replaced, her eye on the exit. The heat, the exasperation of shoppers with their hands on hangers and too short shorts and pneumonia inducing tee-shirts, donut rings of flesh bulging from them, squeaking through the rails. Why she is among them she can barely fathom. They might have dead children, especially the Africans. Sure their countries are ravaged with disease and here she is among them. She’s careful to smile at the Africans hoping maybe a conversation will emerge, ’til she feels silly for they have their small sons around them and they’re buying football strips and socks for them. Too young maybe, she supposes. She could join a Black church, she’s seen them advertised. Come up for service once a week and find people who’ve escaped from massacre and terror. Find the others with dead sons. What’s she doing here amongst the swimming towels, finding comfort in the suffering of others. What’s wrong with her? Of course there are people here who know death, they’re only 10 minutes from The Mater hospital, but she’s certain none of them, none of the Irish here have lost a son the way her Jimmy’s gone. She’d have to go to America or England or up the North to find those mothers. She wonders can anyone here in Penneys right now spell Afghanistan? She probably can’t either. She certainly can’t visualize exactly where it is. The mad oasis of all those countries beyond Turkey, where no one takes their holidays for Christ’s sake. There’s none here buying tee shirts to wear in the West Bank. These countries that are only on the telly because they’re having the buildings and bridges bombed out of them. Pakistan, Pakistan, that’s the border now, she’s calmed by remembering a fact as she sorts through a stack of tea towels that have words sewn on them like “cappuccino” and “Paris Café.” At the cutlery, was it cutlery? Maybe it was at the vests, the packets of two vests she became confused about Iran – what language do they speak there? Iranian? She can’t go on not knowing the answer and she’ll have to ask someone here and for fear of doing just that, she leaves past a distracting stand of umbrellas, past two security guards with darker skin and brown eyes too like Halim had and out the closest side door. Would any of them be from Beirut, could you strike a conversation casually and find someone who knows something about over there? Could they tell her whether it is like Beirut inside in the hospital described, all roads that lead to the beach, heavy hot air among the hills.

  They are behind her, the two, and she smiles back at them, but they keep coming. Mrs. Hello. Excuse. Stop. The tea towels are pressed between her fingers still. Stop. Please. Oh Mother of Divine God the cappuccino tea towels are still in her hand. She’s distraught at it and heads straight into their arms, handing them over. I’m very sorry. I don’t know what happened. I never intended to take them. I was thinking of something and became distracted. Please. He’s looking at her, measuring her. It’s ok, one says to the other. I’ll pay for them, but really I don’t want them at all I don’t even like them. Go on, he says, just be careful the next time. Take a basket in your hands ok. The other says he’d better search her bag or they’ll get in trouble. They push a few bits aside. Take out her book about Beirut and flap through the pages. You been to Beirut, he asks her. No, I haven’t, but I believe it is a beautiful place. Would you believe me if I told you that was what I was thinking about when I had to leave the shop? Neither of them gave a response. I was upset because I couldn’t remember the language they speak in Iran and I am worried there will be a war there. She cannot control the build-up in her eyes and her words sound ridiculous, an old person speaking like a child. I’m sorry, she says. Just be careful next time. The humiliation follows her back out the door, people are staring at her. Her cheeks burn, her hands are clammy and she must get to Eason’s.

  A Traveller woman, a big girl she is, is holding a half-eaten packet of cakes in one hand and two or three children hover near her, tripping over her stout legs. She can feel her move over and see her mouth depress.

  —I’m sorry, she starts to tell her, but tears are progressing down one side of her face and the woman God bless her has seen it and stares in for about 5 seconds, but relieves her of any further answer by approaching a man in brown shoes. She knows he’s wearing brown shoes because her head is deliberately lowered. She takes a moment by the wall there leaning in, the pressure below in her bladder mounts. The Traveller has gone to the security guard and she’s looking over at her but the Security Guard is emphatic. He looks over but he has those arms crossed, but he says something and then the girl looks again to her. She has to move off before anyone asks her.

  She uses the side trail of her hair to collect the tears. Amazed that you can cry into your hair, if it’s of a good enough length. She thinks slowly of the words she’d say if anyone asks her what’s wrong with her? She tries to imagine saying it’s my son, my son’s been killed but it doesn’t sound right, my son’s been killed and you are all out shopping she wants to say, but corrects herself, she too, is out shopping. We’ll always be out shopping she thinks as her tears tumble. Two am on a Thursday and Henry Street will be throbbing. Even if they cratered it, we’d walk around the edges to get to Roches Stores.

  Should Marks and Spencer beckon? That’s where women of her age go, but she doesn’t want to become calmed by chocolate mousse or pineapple tidbits or overpriced melon, so it’s along by the jumper shop that is no more, imprinted with For Lease signs and the two brass statues of the women shopping with their bags at their knees. Knees smeared in pigeon shite and stubbed out fags, but what the hell they’re knees nonetheless and she longs to be a woman who sits and talks to another like her about shopping instead of this flustering that’s taken her over and has her eyes evacuating themselves in public. She cannot be certain if the grief is worse than the fear of humiliation. She’s let herself go, she’s let herself go, in public, continuously roil around her head like the belt of a generator. Beirut, Beirut, and you’ve let yourself go, you daft woman, eventually meet on a loop of Beirut and let go. Beirut and let go.

  The Bridge is tricky. The gravitational pull of the crowd is straight over and under like a train through the viaduct to deliver yourself into the devilish palm of Temple Bar. The last time she walked through it she was astonished to see orange apartments and not a single tree. Today there are swarms of hungover young fellas and teenage whizzes who only remind what a great, great teenager Jimmy was compared to them and make everything forty times worse. He wasn’t a young lad for hanging about. And the noise of them. Are they worse than the girls she wonders as a girl, half-dressed her bits hanging out of her, races and jumps, straddling a fella, nearly knocking him into her. And the noise that picks up. There’s something military about the noise of teenagers, as they spot each other screeching out their targets. It’s a strange old language they speak and she’s not about to understand it. Would you ever shut up she wants to shout, until it strikes her no, keep going, keep going, keep ramming each other into the wall and smacking each other on the head, do lift up and let out a siren wail at the sight of each other, for one day you might not be here to caper about this way and it’s mothers who’ll walk these alleys and arches for any smudge that may remain of you.

&n
bsp; She’ll do the bus stops, waste a bit of time and head back to the station. Up the Quays she forces herself, tempted into a newsagent by the promise of a Club Milk and a paper, but the queue of crisp-buying youngsters feels too long and she’s hot, everywhere she goes into she’s so hot. They’re pulling at chocolate, papers and magazines. And they’re all so young again. Everyone is young, everyone is who Jimmy was and who Jimmy couldn’t be. She’s come to Dublin for the day’s shopping to be shut of the voices and the sights and it’s back to the Blue House with the gaping hole she’ll retreat to early. It’s back to the stool and the small hope he’ll come again and stare at her from the wall. If she can hear him alone, that would do.

  Episode 16

  She’s like a bold teenager out there: the flask jolting her thigh like the accidental budge of a drunk or clumsy lover. Her finger presses hard on the spoon handle. Along she goes merrily. She hasn’t thought too much about what she’ll do when she gets to the house and she’s going along very merrily with the freedom thing until something takes her ankle sharp and fast. She’s down. It’s wet. This is not good.

  The flask has bruised her leg. Hip soaked in a muddy graze. Whatever way she fell or however she slammed, the side of her head – her temple – took a whack that sounded worse than it feels and now she’s down here on her side in the dark and the worst of it, is not the difficulty getting up, it’s that her plans are slipping away.

  Ding! goes the plan to arrange the small footstool, dang! disappears the careful removal of her flask from the bag, and rats! to the gentle twist of the lid, breeze of steam and comfort of her cup of tea, all alone, in another man’s house.