by Moira Murphy
I would need to get over the first hurdle, which was going into the shed for the tools. That shed was Spider World and spiders and me just didn’t get on. I was terrified of them and they knew it. They deliberately built their webs across the doorway to keep me out. The sensation of the gossamer threads fingering my face and clinging onto my hair was usually enough for me to require smelling salts, and on a bad day, say if the spider was still in the web; heart resuscitation.
My last venture into the shed was with an Asda bag over my head with the handle loops pushed under the collar of my polo neck. The bag had eyes, nose and mouth cut-outs. I had needed a dibble and some weed killer and I was taking no chances. I had pulled the eye holes tighter onto my face and more in line with my eyes to better see the stuff on the shelves, when George sneaked in, grabbed me from behind saying, “How’s this for a dibble,” while Mr Jones, only the width of a hedge away, sang ‘Hey Jude’ while dead heading his petunias. It never ceased to amaze me how, even George, could find someone with an Asda bag with eye and mouth cut-outs over her head, a turn-on.
Okay, down to business. I pulled a plastic bag over my head, as previously described, checked to make sure no one was watching who might have thought the Klu Klux Klan had come to town, made my way down the garden path and ventured into the shed. I was armed for protection with the handle that used to have a cricket bat on the end of it, pre-dog. I pulled the eyeholes tighter and looked around stealthily. No sign of anything untoward, i.e. spiders, so I got together the things I would need. A hammer, a chisel and step ladders.
I had devised a plan. I would start by loosening each corner of the mirror by wedging the chisel between the ceiling and the mirror and then hitting the chisel with the hammer. Then, I would work my way to the centre from each of the loosened corners. I protected the bed and the furniture with some muslin sheets then I set to work.
The corners of the mirror were loosening very nicely and just as planned. I now had to inch my way to the centre. I started at the first loosened corner and tapped at the chisel. There was slightly more dust falling than I would have liked but so far so good. I then went to the opposite corner and tapped again at the chisel. I was on a roll. Knock, knock, tap, tap. Then, without any warning and with an almighty crash, the mirror plus half the ceiling somehow missed me completely and fell onto the bed.
The dust was unbelievable. I couldn’t see a thing. I slid down the ladder and felt my way to the door. I was on the landing, bent over, coughing and spluttering when the phone rang.
I ran downstairs. “Hu – Hullo,” I spluttered.
“Hello there,” the voice sounded cheery, “do you own a brown and white friendly, excitable dog. The name tag’s a bit scratched but it looks like her name could be Millie?”
I hesitated. Lennie must have left the gate open.
“Hello, are you there? Like I say the tag’s a bit scratched, but it looks like this is the number.”
“Em, who is this?” I coughed.
“It’s Dale. I’m working at the special needs school on Sycamore Street and the dog was running around the yard with the kids. It’s just they’ve gone into their classes and nobody knew what to do about the dog. One little fella was crying his eyes out, he wanted to take it home with him.”
I perked up. “Did he? What did his mam say?”
“His mam isn’t here. It’s just I’ve got the dog with me in the van, she’s eating my crisps. Hey you, that’s my dinner when you’ve quite finished, you little rascal. The thing is, I need to get back to work, I’ve another job to go to after this one. Is it your dog then?”
“Yes, sounds like it,” I said flatly.
“Well, are you coming to get her then?”
“Yes,” I coughed, “I’ll be there shortly.”
The dog lead wasn’t in the usual place, but then it would be a miracle if it was. Sycamore Street school was only a few streets away, I would carry Millie back. I knew I must look a mess but I pulled on a cardigan and hoped for the best.
As I got nearer the school, I spied the van parked at the gates. A tanned arm was hanging out of the window and Millie’s sleeping head was being cushioned by it. As I got closer, I saw Dale with his head on the headrest and with his eyes closed. They were both sleeping. He was quite nice looking in a boy band sort of way. They looked companionable, it seemed a pity to disturb them. It seemed to me Millie would be really happy riding around in a van all day eating crisps and sleeping on Dale’s arm instead of being cooped up in a kitchen, relying on the throw of a coin as to who lost and had to take her for a walk. Perhaps I could just sneak away.
Too late. Millie heard my footsteps and whimpered.
Dale opened his eyes and blinked. “Hi, have you come for the dog?”
I said I had. He was actually very nice looking with his brown eyes open and his muscles rippling in his uncommonly (for a builder) white vest, as he pulled himself up in the seat.
“Bloody hell luv, you collided with a cement wagon or what?”
Oh here we go. I meet the village’s Ronan Keating and I look like the plaster cast of clay woman. I told him I’d had a bit of bother with a ceiling.
He said I should ring his company. He said the bosses were on holiday at the moment, but someone would be there to take the call. He fished about in the dashboard then handed me his company’s card:
George Charlton and Francine McGovern
Building Services and Man Power Recruitment Associates.
For all your Building and Manpower Requirements.
Let us give you a free estimate for professional service and advice.
Guaranteed to beat any like-for-like quote.
I thanked Dale for the card and took the dog who, it has to be said, was more than a little reluctant to come. Perhaps she found it too confusing trying to keep up with my colour changes; a streaky orangutan one week, clay woman the next.
So, George and Fran had amalgamated. He’d kept that quiet.
27
GOING FORWARD BY GOING BACK
Three streets later and Millie weighed a ton. I’d tried putting her down and dragging her by the collar but she wasn’t having any of it. So we compromised. I lifted her front legs while she walked on her hind legs and somehow we made progress. The plaster dust got up her nose and made her sneeze and she continued to sneeze all the way home which made the journey even more arduous. Eventually I staggered to the front door, opened it and all but dropped her in the hall just as the phone rang.
“Hello, Joanne it’s Norah,” Norah is my mother’s next door neighbour, “I called round to see if your mother fancied a cuppa, but she’s not well, Joanne. I think she’s had some sort of seizure, perhaps even a bit of a stroke. I’ve called the doctor and there’s an ambulance on its way.”
A BIT OF A STROKE. The phrase resounded, leaving echoes in my brain. My heart pounded into my throat. I told Norah I was on my way. I grabbed my keys from the hall table, slammed the door behind me and ran.
A BIT OF A STROKE. What did that mean?
I got there as my mother, wrapped in a blanket and with breathing apparatus over her mouth, was being wheeled into the ambulance. She looked ashen. I climbed, panting, into the ambulance with her.
“I’m Joanne and this is my mother,” I said breathlessly to the ambulance man who gave me a strange look.
“We’ll soon have her in hospital, don’t worry, she’ll be in good hands,” he said, while checking the equipment and giving me sly little looks out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps he thought I was a health hazard. I probably was.
I wanted to hold my mother’s hands, but they were covered by the blanket which was up to her chin so I stroked her hair instead. I had forgotten how it felt, my mother’s hair, how fine and soft it was. I twiddled the curls between my fingers the way I had as a child, when I couldn’t sleep and she lay with
me telling me stories. Was it possible that someone so significant to my life was going to disappear from it? Yet I knew it was more than possible. My father had passed away one day when I was at school. They called me out of class to tell me. His heart, dodgy for years had given up on him, on us, my mother and me. That was a terrible time but at least then I still had my mother.
Tears were welling but I held onto them. Her head was lolling to one side and her eyes were barely open but she was conscious.
“I’m here, Mam, everything’s going to be okay, you’ll see.” Then I sniffed the air and looked around. Had Millie followed me and jumped into the ambulance? I sniffed my cardigan. Damn.
My mother was taken in as an emergency and wheeled into a side ward where her condition was assessed. I was asked to wait in an ante room. People were coming and going and giving me strange looks. After what seemed an eternity, the doctor came in and told me they didn’t think my mother had suffered a stroke, but further tests were needed. He said she would be kept in a high dependency unit and her condition monitored. He said she had been given a sedative and was sleeping but I could sit with her for a while. I went in. She was wired up to monitors, one of which bleeped and a nurse came in and adjusted something which stopped the bleeping. The nurse looked at me strangely the way everyone else did.
I checked my watch. The children would be home from school soon. I should get back. The nurse said there was nothing I could do for my mother, she would continue to sleep, but if there were concerns I would be contacted immediately.
I followed the painted, oversized footprints around the twisting and turning hospital corridors until I came out of the rear doors and onto the car park. I wandered about for a while looking for my car. Then I remembered, I didn’t have it. I was vaguely conscious of people looking at me. I realised I would need to ring for a taxi because I hadn’t a clue about the buses, except they were now gaudy colours. I went back into the hospital to look for a call box. The taxi was a free phone number, which was just as well because I had no money; I would have to pay the driver when I got home. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion.
The taxi driver said, “You’re as white as a sheet, luv, you had a shock?”
I just said, “Yes.” He sounded genuine, but perhaps he was being sarcastic, I couldn’t tell and I didn’t care. He didn’t say anything else. He pulled up outside my door and waited until I got my purse. I paid him then went back into the house.
I stood in the doorway of the living room. Lucy was in an armchair with her knees up to her chin, tormenting Josh.
“Josh and Leonora up a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.”
Josh was punching her knees and protesting that he didn’t fancy Leonora Smithson. He said Leonora Smithson was minging and he’d only been chatting her up for Jack.
Then they caught sight of me in the doorway.
“Mam, what’s happened to you?” Lucy asked. “We came from school and the door was locked, so we went to Gran’s but she wasn’t in, so we had to get the spare key off Janice. Mam why are you covered in that white stuff?”
I suddenly felt exhausted. “Give me a few minutes then I’ll tell you all about it.”
I caught sight of myself in the hall mirror. What a mess! No wonder I’d been getting all those strange looks.
I went into the kitchen and filled the kettle then I leaned onto my elbows on the kitchen bench and great big plaster tears splashed onto it. I didn’t want my mother to die. I loved her, she was my mother, she had had a boyfriend last week and she had a seat on a coach to visit a walled garden. She couldn’t die. I wasn’t ready to lose her. I wasn’t ready to be an orphan. I threw a tea bag into a cup then pulled some kitchen paper from its roll and wiped the bench, before the plaster tears set and I’d need to scrape them off.
My feet dragged me up the stairs. I ran a bath, poured in some bubbles, threw in a fizz bomb and listened while it crackled and fizzed.
The bath was warm and scented. I held my breath and submerged, my hair swirling and covering my face, until I needed to resurface to breathe. Then, as I hauled myself into a sitting position I realised I was sitting in an inch of sludge. The bubbles had disappeared and made way for a film of horrible grey stuff. I stood up and dripped gung. I reached for a towel to rub myself down and it turned into sandpaper. I stood looking down at the gung realising that if I pulled the plug the pipes would get blocked. I pulled the shower head from the taps and swilled myself down leaving the plug in.
Wrapped in a towel, I sat on the edge of the bath swirling the gung around with my fingers. My mother was in a hospital high dependency unit. My bed was covered in half a ceiling and a shattered mirror, my children were waiting for their tea and some sort of explanation, the dog needed to go out and there was an inch of sludge in the bottom of the bath to be somehow gotten rid of.
I came downstairs, Lucy and Josh were subdued, they knew something was wrong. Lucy had put a pizza in the oven and was shredding lettuce for a salad. Josh had fed the dog and was about to take her for a walk. They gave me shaky, questioning smiles.
I sat them down and told them their gran was very poorly and all we could do was to hope and say prayers for her to get well. Tears immediately welled in Lucy’s eyes and Josh bent to put the lead on the dog, in case I saw them in his.
We ate quietly then the children, without prompting, cleared a space on the table and proceeded to take from their bags, books for their homework. The dog, sensing something was wrong, sat under the table between their feet.
I went upstairs. Forcing the door to my bedroom open because the stepladders were jamming it, I peered in and surveyed the damage. Had this happened today? There was stuff on the bed amongst the dust. A Girl’s World head, some Star Wars figures, books, a bag of vinyl records and a box of Christmas decorations. I looked up at the void that had been the ceiling and realised this stuff had been in the loft. I closed the bedroom door; it would have to wait.
I slept on the sofa in a sleeping bag and as I woke my stomach knotted. I looked at the clock, it was 6am. The hospital hadn’t called, so I rang them. I was told there was no change in my mother’s condition. She was being kept sedated until her blood pressure and her heartbeat were stabilised. I was told she was still very poorly; that she would undergo some tests, which would include neurology tests later that morning and I would be able to see her and have a chat with the doctor after about eleven.
It was still too early for the children to get up. As I couldn’t get near the clothes in my bedroom, I pulled on some jeans and a top, which had been in the ironing basket. I hooked the dog to her lead, put my keys in my pocket and went quietly out of the front door. I ran until I came to St Augustine’s church. In the porch I blessed myself with holy water before opening the door and peering in; in case a Mass was being said.
It was deathly quiet. I picked the dog up and tiptoed to near the front where rows of candles were burning; candles lit by the faithful for thanksgiving or hope. In the stillness I could hear the flickering of their flames and the dripping of the hot wax as it melted and fell onto the holders. I could smell the lingering, familiar and somehow comforting smell of the incense and candle wax which hung about in the air and which had pervaded the old oak pews and ceiling beams for a century or more.
There was another smell. I looked around. Under the eaves at the back was a bag lady swigging gin from a bottle. It was the gin I could smell. Two nuns were in the pews opposite counting prayers from big brown rosary beads which hung like rusted chains around their waists. They alternated the prayers with a kiss on their rosary crucifix. I knelt in the nearest pew and with the dog sitting beside me I looked up, behind the pulpit, to where the statue of Jesus on the Cross stood on its oak plinth. I told Jesus that I would be so grateful if he could find it in his heart to give me some more time with my mother, I wasn’t ready to lose her and she wasn’t ready to die, she had so much l
ife in her still. But, if he had other plans, then I prayed he would take her quietly, while she was sleeping. I thanked him for my mother’s life, for my lovely children and for everything else he had blessed me with.
The shambling figure of Father McCaffrey came out of the vestry to prepare for the early mass. As he walked across to the chancery, he was stopped in his tracks by the sight of me and the dog. I gave him a watery smile. He came and sat with me and he stroked the dog. I told him about my mother. He was surprised and saddened. He said how much he had always liked my mother, that she was a good-hearted soul who he’d never heard say a wrong word about anyone. He smiled and said he could remember as plain as day the time he called to bless my mother’s new bungalow. It was the day Simon’s Lad romped home at Haydock Park. He and my mother had watched it on telly then they’d had tea and homemade date and walnut cake before he went to collect his winnings. He said my mother’s date and walnut cake was the best he’d ever tasted. He was doing his best to cheer me up. He said he would offer up the seven o clock mass for my mother’s intention and he would have prayers said for her in the evening mass. He said he would visit my mother and that I was to remember God was good. Then he blessed both me and the dog.
The doctor said my mother’s condition was still causing concern and she would continue in the high dependency unit for the time being. Her blood pressure was very low and her heartbeat was irregular and she would continue to require round the clock monitoring. She was still wired up to contraptions which lit up and bleeped and which drew haphazard lines on screens. I watched her as she slept. Her skin was as rosy and as smooth as a young girl’s. I held her hand and told her what Father McCaffrey had said.