Civil & Strange

by Clair Ni Aonghusa

  The phone rings. “Beatrice?” a voice says. “It’s Ellen. Where did you and Matt get to?”

  “We got tired of waiting, and Matt had to go and milk the cows. Did you go astray?”

  “Yes, we got lost. Then we ran into a farmer who didn’t like us walking along the edge of his land. He got very agitated. Fortunately, Stephen was with us and the farmer recognized him. It was really stupid, Beatrice. We weren’t on his precious land.”

  “They’re very territorial around here, Ellen. Don’t let it upset you.”

  “We’re down in the pub. There’s a real carnival atmosphere. Won’t you come and join us? Lily is here. She says she’ll have to do lots more walks if the two of you are to tramp the cities of Europe!”

  “I’m too lazy now. I’ll stay put.”

  “Give me a ring soon.”

  “The trouble with you, Ellen, is that I never know where you’re going to be.”

  Ellen laughs. “Try my mobile. That’ll get me. You have the number.”

  Beatrice switches on the radio to catch the early evening news. Trouble in Northern Ireland, another glitch in the endless negotiations, a suicide bomber in Israel, a suspected banks’ scandal, and allegations about some celebrity she’s never even heard of. The forecast is for a prolonged dry spell. Evening temperatures will dip although it’ll be warm during the day. It’s a good week to catch up on work in the garden.

  Seventeen

  GOD ALMIGHTY, Ellen, but you’re a hard woman to find,” Eddie says. “I’ve been all over the school. Only I saw your car outside, I’d have given up. Your uncle rang looking for you. He said you weren’t answering your mobile.” He looks at her, hunched on the carpeted floor of the staff room annex, the contents of her locker beside her. “What are you up to?”

  “What do you think? Clearing up, clearing out.” She throws a book into a big cardboard box she’s brought for the occasion. Her shoulder-length hair is tied up in a ponytail and she’s dressed in black cords, high-heeled black shoes, and a sleeveless low-necked red top that reveals a reasonable amount of cleavage.

  “Very nice,” Eddie says of her outfit. “There wouldn’t be a peep out of the boys if you wore that in class. How’d the interview go? I heard you blazed your way through it.”

  “You know, it’s years since I did an interview. I did my best, but I may have overdone it. It was weird. Nothing fazed me. I had to force myself to slow down at the end. It’s the times you think you’ve done well that you mess up.”

  “I heard you were running the show. You might be unpacking again.”

  “They didn’t ask anything about my private life, didn’t try to catch me out.”

  “They couldn’t. You had to be asked the same questions as everybody else.”

  Desks and chairs are being set up in the assembly hall, and some classrooms have been reconstituted to act as exam centers. Throughout the day invigilators drive to the back entrance of the school, deposit the metal boxes that hold the exam papers in the strong room, assess the suitability of seating and other arrangements in the centers and sort out security and key-holder details.

  Eddie looks different somehow, younger. The strain of the daily grind of work has lifted from his features and his color is better. Of course, everybody in the staff looks reinvigorated once the holidays arrive — the years just drop away. She’s overheard colleagues making plans to play tennis doubles over the summer. Seems there’s a long tradition of contact between some of the staff during the break. It displays a warmth that she was never able to tap into.

  “We’re forgetting ourselves,” he says. “That phone call. Check your messages now.”

  She fumbles in her bag and searches the boxes. “I don’t have my mobile. I bet I left it in the car.”

  “You’d better use the phone in my office, nine for an outside line. I’ll lock up.”

  “Don’t lock up. I have to come back here.”

  “Make haste, Ellen,” he says, pushing her out the door, and she finally hears urgency in his voice.

  “Where the hell have you been? I couldn’t reach you,” Matt shouts when he finally answers the phone. “I thought you were finished with school.”

  “There are always bits and pieces. I had to fill in report sheets, and I’m gathering my stuff. What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Kitty. She’s been admitted to hospital. Something to do with her heart.”

  The oddness of what he’s saying strikes her. Her scalp tingles. She has never associated her mother with illness. She’s not sure that she can recall a time when Kitty was properly sick. Colds and sniffles of course, but otherwise remarkably resilient. “Not an attack? A heart attack?”

  “She’s in for tests. You’d better get up there.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “I’m not a doctor, am I? They’re admitting her so they’re taking it seriously.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “Her friend Muriel rang. I left a message on your machine. And, of course, when I was trying to find you, I was in to Terry in case she’d seen you. You can rest assured that the whole village is in the know now.”

  That figures. A nice little bit of excitement, people watching out for her car, little flurries as people phone around. “Have you heard?” and “Did you see?” Terry in her element regaling customers with the dramatic news.

  “You’d better ring this Muriel. I’ll give you her mobile number.”

  When she replaces the receiver, she finds that she needs to sit down. She’s a little breathless. An unwelcome intruder has broken into her life. What will she call it? Mortality? Death? No, probably not death, but one or other of his myriad relations — pain, weakness, fear, illness, or decrepitude. None of Kitty’s posturing or maneuvers have ever counted for much with her, but this is different. It’s as if she’s missing her mother for the first time.

  Outside, the early June sun beats down on the tennis court below Eddie’s office. She hears grunts and shouts, the twang of a ball against a racket, the thud as it hits the ground. But she feels a chill — for which she’s underdressed — and sits, for how long she has no idea.

  Eventually she comes to and shrugs off her inertia. Her arms bristle with goose pimples. The Muriel who answers Ellen’s call to her mobile is laconic and gives practical directions. “We’ll save talk for when we meet,” she says. Ellen gauges the time the journey is likely to take and expects to reach the hospital at some stage of the evening.

  It’s oddly apt that a woman so careful of her health — moderation in all things — but terrified of hospitals and medical examinations, has earned herself a genuine medical emergency.

  The incongruity of this is brought home to Ellen when, her first time in the ward, she draws back the curtain that corrals the space that she has deduced must contain her mother’s bed and is arrested by the unprecedented sight of her mother’s bare breasts and naked torso, her chest dotted with electric monitors connected to a machine beside the bed. Neither Kitty nor the dark-skinned medic she’s talking to notice Ellen, who retreats hurriedly. It’s a shock — a revelation? — to be confronted by that nakedness and to realize that the body of a post-menopausal, sixty-two-year-old woman looks reassuringly intact and firm. Her mother could still pass the swimsuit test. And yet her mother’s body has been found wanting.

  Ellen bolts out into the corridor and explains to Muriel that the curtains are drawn. Muriel, a diminutive busty blond woman of uncertain age, appears invigorated by the drama. “We were in my place in Wicklow — I take a house near Brittas Bay every summer — out walking along the beach early yesterday, when she began to feel unwell. Actually, she woke up not feeling great but decided a walk might settle her. She experienced this sensation down her left arm —”

  “That’s the classic symptom, isn’t it?”

  “They keep telling me that women present differently — it could be a pain in the shoulder or down the back — but that’s how it was for her. So, I drove straight to my d
octor who told her she was fine — it was probably just muscle strain — but that if she was uneasy he’d send her off for an ECG. She accepted that she was probably okay, but I wasn’t happy. My husband died from an undiagnosed heart condition three years ago, and he hadn’t been feeling well for days before, so I took the bit between my teeth and insisted we come here and, of course, the test showed up an irregularity.”

  “I have to sit down,” Ellen says. She’s just realized that she hasn’t eaten since breakfast.

  “You poor thing. I was forgetting the impact of the news, the shock of hearing this.”

  “Oh, I’m okay.”

  “Your mother is sleeping,” an Asian nurse tells Ellen in careful English. “She is very tired,” she says. “See her tomorrow.”

  “Irish nurses are very thin on the ground,” Ellen comments when the nurse has gone.

  “The world has changed. It’s a regular United Nations in hospitals nowadays,” Muriel says. “We’d have no health service without them.” She pats Ellen on the shoulder. “You go and get a good night’s rest, and I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning.”

  • • •

  The following day Ellen finds herself back on the same corridor with Muriel, waiting for the doctors to finish their rounds. “Here they come,” Muriel says, edging Ellen into their path. “At least they’re Irish. We’ll be able to understand them.”

  “You’re the daughter,” the tall, middle-aged autocratic man in the suit and steel-rimmed spectacles says. He shakes hands with Ellen. “I’m Bill Edwards. Your mother is under my care. My colleague, Doctor Mary Day,” he says, indicating the dark-haired, low-key, but reasonably attractive young woman by his side, “will explain everything. Ask any questions you like. Okay?” At which stage he gives a barely perceptible nod and rejoins a group of what Ellen presumes to be trainee doctors, some wearing traditional white coats, others dressed casually but clutching charts and stethoscopes.

  “Hi,” the woman says with an engaging smile. “Call me Mary. I’m the registrar. Professor Edwards is a cardiologist and he’s your mum’s consultant. He wants me to let you know what’s going on.”

  “So what’s the story?” Ellen asks.

  “We’re running a series of tests on your mother at the moment. We know there’s a blockage. It’s a question of location and degree. We’ve put her on anticoagulants as a precaution against clots.”

  “A blockage? An artery, you mean?” It’s extraordinary to be having this conversation about her mother.

  “She smokes,” the woman says, sotto voce, as if to spare Ellen’s feelings.

  “She used to, but she gave them up years ago. She takes the occasional cigarette. Adds up to — ten or twelve a year at most.”

  “Still, people tend to understate —”

  “No, she wouldn’t understate. She never understates,” counters Ellen. “If she smokes a cigarette once every six weeks, that’s as much as she does. She’s quite abstemious, watches her intake of food, takes regular exercise, and never overdoes it in any regard. This will put the frighteners on her. I can guarantee she’ll never touch a cigarette again in her life.”

  Mary shrugs in a noncommittal fashion. “That’s as may be. For the moment we’re treating her as unstable. We need to establish the precise nature of what we’re dealing with. After the angiogram, we’ll have a much better idea of how things are,” she says, and begins to move away. “We’ll talk again,” she calls over her shoulder.

  For a moment Ellen can relate the word “unstable” only to explosive gases or to extreme mental or psychological conditions, which gives rise to a fascinating take on her mother’s predicament — Kitty careering about wildly, dipping and weaving her way along a corridor, in danger of detonating.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Muriel says in a clucking, hen-like fashion. “It’s all under control. You know, your mum wouldn’t let me contact you until yesterday. She knew you had an important meeting.”

  “The final staff meeting? That was last Friday. It wouldn’t have been a hardship to miss that. Oh, I know what she means. She was thinking about the job interview the previous day again.”

  “You’d better go in and say hello. I’ll wait outside.”

  “You come in too, Muriel. I’ve you to thank for Mum’s condition being picked up.”

  Kitty is presentable, modestly attired in a nondescript hospital gown. She seems to have shrunk into herself, to be physically smaller. She greets Ellen with a self-deprecating grimace. “Hello, darling.”

  “You’ve pulled a bit of a stunt. Touch of the dramatics, eh?”

  Kitty looks tired, her features a little drawn. “They’re talking about this balloon thing,” she says. “I don’t like the sound of it.”

  “They put it into the artery and inflate it,” Muriel says helpfully. “It’s very successful,” she says, patting Kitty’s arm. “But it could be a bypass, Kitty. Don’t forget. Depends on the extent of the blockage.”

  Kitty groans. “Anything but that. That’d really put me out of action. Oh, Ellen, why did this have to happen?”

  “It mightn’t be so bad, Mum. How do you feel?”

  “No pain. They gave me painkillers. But to think of me having a heart condition makes me feel quite old.”

  And all that Ellen can think of, as she draws up a chair to sit by her mother’s side, is that Kitty couldn’t have engineered this better if she had planned it. Whatever the outcome of this scare, she’ll forever be able to flaunt the episode and put it to good use. “My heart,” she will say, delicately patting the area around her breastbone. “My daughter,” she will say. “She’s so good to me. She’s moving back to Dublin to keep an eye on me.” Ellen begins to feel weak. Her legs tremble. She feels like a character trapped in a gloomy novel about unreasonable and unspeakably controlling families. Kitty will suck her dry.

  Suddenly she realizes how ungenerous she’s being. Her panic feels contrived. Kitty has shown no inclination to milk the situation. She’s anxious and fretful, certainly, but nothing more than that.

  “I’m finding it hard to take all this in,” says Kitty. “Overload.” She turns to Muriel. “I’m spent. I shouldn’t have taken that sleeping pill last night.”

  Matt looks out of place in a hospital setting, walks as if constipated. She notices his country ruggedness, his weathered face, the old-fashioned haircut, the awkwardness of the ill-fitting suit, the unnatural whiteness and crispness of the newly bought shirt, the faded tie, and, most of all, those outsized, tanned, nicotine-stained hands — one clutching a supermarket bag — hanging awkwardly by his sides.

  She runs to him. “Matt! I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “When I was offered a drive up —”

  “A drive? Who drove you?”

  And, to her horror, she sees Eugene stepping out from one of the lifts at the front of a crowd. “What are you doing here?” she asks. She’s wondering how she can explain him to her mother.

  “That’s a fine welcome,” he chides. “You just took off without telling me.” He catches her close and lands a kiss on her mouth. All at once she’s full of shyness, but Matt doesn’t seem to mind.

  “I can’t believe you two drove up together.”

  “Sure, I had to put in an appearance, and he made the offer.”

  She laughs. “I wouldn’t like to have been with you on that journey.”

  “Eugene’s okay, actually,” Matt says. “Now, where’s this sister-in-law of mine?”

  “This way. I’ll come in with you. You stay put,” she says to Eugene.

  “None of that now. I’m coming,” Eugene says firmly.

  “Kitty has to find out about him sometime. Best place for it to happen is here. Plenty of doctors and machines about if it provokes a reaction,” Matt says.

  “Well, I won’t pretend to understand any of this,” Ellen says. “I thought you two could just about tolerate each other.”

  “He improves,” Matt says. “He knows more t
han you’d think about the War of Independence and our neutrality during the Second World War.”

  “Courting him?” Ellen hisses at Eugene as they follow Matt into the ward. He winks at her.

  “Matt, how lovely!” Kitty enthuses, perking up. Her eyes widen when he produces a bag of grapes and a bottle of Lucozade from the bag. “You’re so good to think of me,” she gushes.

  “Couldn’t come with one hand as long as the other. Sorry to hear you’ve been in the wars.”

  “Oh, it’s not as bad as it might have been. I’ve been sent from pillar to post with all the tests they’ve given me. They might do a bypass or this angioplasty thing. That seems my best option.”

  “Beats a heart attack,” Matt says deadpan.

  “I’d forgotten how blunt you can be.” She can’t keep her eyes off Eugene. “You’ll have to introduce me to this young man,” she says coquettishly. “At first I took him for Stephen, but he’s nothing like him. Who is he, Matt?”

  “This is Eugene, Kitty. You’ve seen him before but you probably don’t remember. He’d have been in the pub the day of Julia’s funeral. He’s my lift, but he’s also Ellen’s young man.”

  Kitty’s mouth falls open but she remembers to shut it quickly. “What’s this, Ellen?” she says querulously. “Why haven’t I been told?”

  “Pleased to meet you, Kitty. I’m Eugene O’Brien,” Eugene says.

  “Likewise I’m sure, but why didn’t anybody tell me? Ellen?”

  “I was waiting till the summer holidays.”

  Mention of the summer holidays triggers something in Kitty. “I forgot about the job. How did the interview go?”

  “It could be a while before we know the outcome. The board of management will have the final word at their next meeting. It’s bound to go to a local.”

  “Well, you’re at one remove from being local,” Matt says as he sits down.

  “And who? — who exactly are you, Eugene?” asks an unusually helpless Kitty. “You’ve just been sprung on me.”

  “He’s a carpenter…” Ellen begins.