Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed

by Martha Long

‘I know how to clean but I can’t cook!’

  She shook her head up and down, looking satisfied at the mention I can clean.

  ‘Well, it’s not cooking really. I only want you to prepare the potatoes and vegetables for the evening meal. I can cook the dinner myself when I come back in the evenings.’

  ‘But I can’t cook. Sorry, but I’m not going to be doing any cooking. I can clean,’ I said, looking around the filthy, smelly kitchen.

  ‘Don’t make a fuss,’ she said, waving her hand at me and walking off to put on the kettle. ‘I will leave the potatoes and the rest of the vegetables out for you to peel. You can do that much, surely! Any fool can peel vegetables,’ she snorted, grabbing hold of the kettle and slamming dishes out of the way to get the kettle under the tap.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said, feeling really fed up before I even had a chance to get started in the job. I stood waiting, looking at me suitcase, hoping she would tell me I can take it up to me room.

  ‘Here, get started straight away on these dishes. I’m going to put the dinner on.’ I looked at me suitcase sitting on the floor and lifted it up, wondering what I should do with it. ‘Where are you planning on going with that?’ she said, looking down at me case.

  ‘Sorry, eh, could I put it in me room?’

  ‘Just leave it there and get started. I’ve wasted enough time,’ she snapped.

  I took off me coat and left it on me suitcase, sitting it in the alcove against the wall. Then I rolled up the sleeves of me cardigan and made for the sink. ‘Where’s the rubbish bin, please, missus?’

  ‘Under the sink! Where else would you expect to find it?’

  I opened the press underneath the sink and took out a metal bucket with tea leaves and potato peelings and all sorts of rubbish. It smelled to high heaven. Then started to clear the draining board and put the stuff on the table, trying to make room, and scrape and stack the plates and dishes, trying to make order. When the sink was empty, I turned on the hot tap and waited for it to get hot. ‘The water’s cold,’ I said, turning to her taking vegetables out of the plastic racks sitting against the wall.

  ‘Use the water from the kettle when it boils,’ she muttered, not looking at me because she was busy examining the vegetables that had turned rotten in the racks and was trying to find some that had not gone off. Jaysus! Don’t tell me she’s going to eat that rotten stuff! Fuck! Not even hot water.

  ‘Grainne, go and turn on the immersion in the hot press. They will be wanting hot water for their baths this evening,’ she shouted to the young one sitting on top of the mound of washing on the sofa and reading a book.

  ‘OK, Mammy,’ the young one said, looking over at me like she was making sure I was doing me job.

  I finished all the washing and drying up, then opened up all the presses to find where everything went. I had to take out most of the stuff, because half of the pots were years old and had been dumped on top of each other, with some of them so burned the bottoms were black and only fit for the bin. I made room and put them all back in order. Then cleaned the filthy, greasy sink, scrubbing the hell out of it with Vim from the press under the sink, and wiped down the table. Giving it a good wash with soapy water in a plastic basin. Then cleaned the worktops and started to sweep the floor. I had to get the dustpan and handbrush first or the food would be dragged around the floor and mashed in. Jesus! There’s no wallpaper on the walls, nothing but the bare plaster, and the grey was covered in grease. This place reminds me a bit of the ma and Jackser’s. They were pure filthy as well.

  ‘Right,’ I said, putting the brush and dustpan away in the long corner press. ‘I’m finished,’ I said, looking over at her taking thick slices of already-cooked ham out of a plastic packet. There were two slices in each packet. She put them in the clean frying pan with margarine turning brown and smoking away like mad.

  ‘Start on that ironing,’ she said, nodding her head over at the mountain of washing on the sofa. Fuck! I never ironed a thing in me life. I hesitated, wondering if I should tell her. ‘Go on! What are yeh waiting for?’ she barked, throwing her head at me. Right, I’ll just do them, I thought, making for the iron and looking around to see where the plug goes. ‘The socket’s right behind you on the wall,’ she said, seeing me looking around. ‘Fasten all the buttons on the shirts. Then fold them up as you press them and put the shirts in individual piles!’ she shouted over, without looking at me.

  ‘OK,’ I said, grabbing hold of the shirt and starting to button it.

  She whipped herself over, muttering. ‘No, no, no! Don’t be so stupid. You iron the sleeves first, then the back and sides. Then you button it and fold it into shape,’ she moaned. Showing me with her hands slapping at each place.

  ‘OK, I’ve got that,’ I said, picking up the iron with smoke coming out of it.

  ‘Holy mother of God,’ she whined, grabbing the iron off me. ‘You can’t iron at that high temperature. You will scorch a hole in the shirt. Look! Test it first on the table cover! Test it with your hand,’ she said, slapping the iron and snapping her arm back, burning the hand off herself. ‘Plug it out of the socket if it gets too hot,’ she said, whipping out the cord from the wall. Working herself up into a nervous collapse. ‘Don’t leave it plugged in too long.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, starting to iron the sleeves, looking up into her purple face. Then she was gone. Back to serving up the dinner.

  ‘Hi, Mam! Is dinner ready?’ A long skinny one, wearing black-framed glasses, and a long, thin face with a pointy nose and straight black stringy hair hanging down around her face, came flying in and dropped her books at the kitchen door, landing them smack on the floor. Sending loose pages scattering everywhere. ‘Oh, you managed to get another one,’ she said, waving her head in my direction, and looking at the ma.

  ‘Oh, she’s here well enough,’ the ma muttered. ‘The last convent I rang had someone. They said she was a good worker.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they said about the last one,’ the young one muttered, staring me up and down, muttering out of the corner of her mouth, still keeping an eye on me. ‘Is she any good?’ the young one whispered, standing beside the ma and nodding her head in my direction.

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ the ma mumbled, flicking her eye over at me and lowering her head to the frying pan.

  Jaysus! They’re all ugly in this family, by the looks a that one, I snorted to meself, feeling annoyed at the way your woman was talking about me as if I wasn’t a person. Just a fucking nobody to skivvy for them.

  ‘Sinead, you’re back!’ shouted Grainne, flying down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘Did you spend the day in the library, like Mammy told you to?’ she asked, sounding like her aul ma.

  ‘Yes, yes, I did! Go on back to your room, you little trouble maker,’ laughed Sinead, playfully hitting Grainne in the shoulder.

  I heard the front door opening and banging shut. ‘I’m home, Mam!’ shouted some fella running up the stairs.

  ‘Come down now, Padraig! Dinner’s ready!’ shouted the ma, the hair dropping down over her eye, and her face getting even redder from the heat and smoke pouring out of the frying pan. I watched her slapping the burned, greasy-looking ham down on the plate. One for each person.

  I looked back at me shirt, seeing a bit of brown scorch right on the front. I stared at it. Jaysus! She’ll go mad. I’ll have to hide it at the bottom of the pile when I get going on the rest of the stuff.

  The front door opened again and I could hear someone coming in and the young fella belting down the stairs. ‘How’re yeh, Dad? How’s it going in the old civil service?’ said the young fella, rushing into the room, looking at the plates of dinner stacked on top of the cooker.

  ‘Don’t grab at them plates. You’ll send the lot crashing to the floor!’ the mammy roared, watching him and the plates, all balancing against each other sitting on top of the grill, and more on the very top.

  ‘I’m starved. Jaysus! I could eat a scabby babby,’ he moaned, wringing
his hands and bending his neck, following the ma’s hands landing the plates of dinner on the table.

  ‘Pat, come in out of the hall and have the dinner while it’s hot! I’m not switching on that oven to heat it up if it gets cold,’ she shouted to an aul fella coming in the door. He stopped, and dropped his brown leather office case that looked like a school bag, dumping it on top of all the other books and papers scattered at the kitchen door. Then whipped open his evening newspaper, before he even sat down at the top of the table.

  ‘Hello, Dad!’

  ‘Hello,’ he muttered to Sinead. Shaking open his newspaper and burying his head in it.

  ‘Mammy got another domestic from a convent. Look! She’s over there,’ shouted Grainne, shaking his shoulder and pointing him in my direction.

  ‘Good,’ he muttered. Flicking one eye over at me, then smothering his head back in the newspaper.

  ‘Come on, Grainne. Sit down and start eating. I’m telling you! If the dinner is cold, you can eat it. I’m not stirring myself to heat it up again for you!’

  ‘Have you the immersion on, Mammy?’ Sinead muffled through a mouthful of grub. Dropping half of it back onto the plate, trying to hang onto a piece of ham sticking out of her mouth.

  ‘Yes! Go up straight away. I’m only leaving it on for an hour. That can do the lot of you. The electricity bill was sky high this month.’

  ‘Yes, you can get yourselves a job, if I get any more bills like the last one,’ the daddy barked. Lifting his head and looking over the glasses sitting on his nose, dropping the newspaper to get a better look down the table at the two big ones.

  ‘Don’t blame me, Daddy! I never go near the shagging immersion. It’s Sinead who spends all her time in there, primping herself for that fat fool from college! What’s his name? Fatty Arbuckle!’ laughed Padraig, sounding like a horse neighing.

  ‘Shut up, you! At least I have a boyfriend. No girl would even give you a second look, never mind go out with you!’

  ‘Shut up, the pair of you! I want some peace when I’m trying to eat my dinner!’ roared the dad. Dropping his head back to the reading and shovelling the fork into the dinner from behind the newspaper. Not bothering to see what he was doing, and just aiming it for his mouth. Half of it ended up on his lap and some on the floor. The rest managed to find his mouth.

  Dirty fuckers, I thought, knowing now how the food ends up on the floor. Who would believe a school teacher could have a family like this? She doesn’t even teach them manners. Not even a hello to me. Ah, fuck them, the shower a culchies!

  ‘Would you ever start on that washing-up?’ the ma shouted over at me, as everyone was starting to get up and leave the kitchen.

  ‘OK,’ I said, pulling out the plug from the wall and leaving the da’s trousers half-ironed. I can finish them another day, I thought, staring at the pile of nice ironed stuff I’d done. Feeling very satisfied with me work. Then I started to clear the table and empty the slops into the bucket.

  ‘Put on the kettle and boil the water for the washing-up. Don’t dare touch that hot-water tap. I want that for the baths!’ she shouted at me like I was slow in the head.

  ‘Right,’ I muttered, filling the kettle.

  I had neared the end of the washing-up when Sinead came wandering into the kitchen in her dressing gown and slippers, with her hair wrapped in a towel. I watched her dragging open the presses and pulling out plates and a mug and started making herself sandwiches. Then took out the frying pan and made herself fried eggs and fried bread. Dropping the egg lifter on the cooker, not even bothering to put it beside me on the sink.

  ‘What’s cooking, Sinead?’ shouted the Padraig fella, peeling in and grabbing at the fridge to take out more eggs and making for the cooker. ‘Where’s the cheese? Did you leave any ham? Make us one of them. An omelette,’ he said, scratching his arse and hopping from one foot to the other. Dying to get his jaws into the grub.

  ‘No, make it yourself. I’m not your servant,’ she said, sitting herself down at the table, splashing tomato sauce on the eggs and the other half on the table.

  ‘Hey, miss! Young one! What’s your name? Will yeh make us an omelette? Hurry!’ he said to me, laughing, and throwing his eye at the Sinead one, who laughed, thinking this was very funny, with him trying to make dirt out of me. ‘Come on! Hey, I’m speaking to yeh!’ I ignored him and went on with the washing-up. I dried the last of the pots, slamming them in the press under the sink. ‘Christ, Sinead! She’s deaf as a post!’ he laughed. ‘I’m telling yeh!’

  ‘Shut up, you!’ laughed Sinead, throwing a piece of bread at him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, turning around to face Sinead. ‘Do you have a dog?’

  ‘Wha? What did she say?’ laughed Padraig.

  ‘No, why?’ said Sinead, with her big marble eyes staring out of her head, shining with the laughter and leaning forward to hear why.

  ‘Well, either you have a dog that will eat that bread off the floor or you can get down and shovel it up yourself! Lick it up, for all I care. Another reason,’ I said, looking at the long string of misery Padraig fella, ‘that moron has either been talking to the wall or calling his dog. Surely he wasn’t talking to me? I don’t waste me time on fools! Would you?’ The two of them gaped at me, with their heads leaning forward waiting for me to finish, then screamed the house down laughing.

  ‘Now, fuck faces,’ I said quietly, turning back to them, ‘if you want to live in a clean and tidy house like ordinary decent people, then you better watch how you speak to me. Otherwise, you can go back to living like pigs in this kip. Because I’m walking out that door. Now, which is it?’

  ‘Get Mammy,’ Sinead said quietly to Padraig.

  ‘What? She’ll kill us!’ he roared, swinging his head from me to her. She stared at me, clamping her lips together, weighing up the odds of calling the mammy and maybe seeing me walk out and they’re all left in their own bleedin mess again.

  While she was thinking about this, I said, ‘You can start by washing up your own dishes, the pair of you. And clean that cooker. I’m going to bed. It must be after nine o’clock and I didn’t even get offered a cup of tea, never mind a dinner.’ Then I threw down the dishcloth and grabbed me suitcase and walked out the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ shouted Sinead, running after me.

  ‘Well, I might stay on, if I know there’s a bed for me to sleep in.’

  ‘Wait there. I’ll get Mammy.’

  The ma came out of the sitting room. I could hear the television blaring out behind her. ‘What?’ she said, looking down at my suitcase then up at Sinead.

  ‘She wants her room, Mam! Will I take her up to the spare room?’

  ‘Yes! Where else would I be putting her? Is that what you called me out for? I am missing the news!’ Then she tore back into the sitting room, banging the door in me face.

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you where you are sleeping.’ I followed her up the narrow stairs, watching out for the carpet not fitted in properly. Somebody will break their bleedin neck on these stairs, I thought, looking at the filthy stair carpet. ‘In here,’ she said, opening the door off a small landing, with three other rooms and the bathroom with the door open and water spilled onto the lino!

  ‘Jesus wept!’ I heard meself saying, repeating what Sister Eleanor used to say when things got too much for her. I walked into a room with mounds of curtains and shoes and coats and boxes stacked in every corner, and more piled high under the window. There was only room for a small, two-foot-wide bed and a chair.

  ‘This is your bed. We mostly use this as a junk room,’ she said in a half-hearted laugh, seeing my face getting very annoyed looking around at the state of the room. It was freezing.

  ‘Do you not have any heat in this house, Sinead?’

  ‘Yeah, we have fires in every room. Oh, you better clean out mine in the morning and set it for the evening. Before I get in from college. Around half-four get it going. Then it should be blazing by the time I get in aro
und five, half-five,’ she said, swinging her head around the room and giving me a final look, then taking off out the door.

  I looked at the bed. Someone had slept in it and the sheets were not changed. I pulled down the blankets, seeing blood stains, and the sheets were grey with the want of a wash. Jaysus! I can’t sleep in that! It’s bleedin manky! That’s it!

  I marched out the door and down the stairs and knocked on the sitting-room door. The television was blaring. No answer. I went into the kitchen, looking for Sinead. I was nearly crying with the rage boiling up in me. I stood looking around the empty room. No one here! I looked around, seeing the kettle and filled it, deciding to have a cup of tea and think about me next move. There’s no point in causing a row unless I’m pushed.

  I went back upstairs and decided to look in the hot press on the landing. Ah, good. Just what I’m looking for. Sheets. Clean ones. I took out two, and two clean towels. Now, what else is there? I opened the top press, seeing two spare pillows. Just what the doctor ordered. I rushed into the spare room. It’s not mine. I’m not calling it that because I’m not bleedin staying long enough in this kip. I grabbed hold of the chair and stood up on it to get at the pillows. Ah, that looks like a clean bedspread. I took the green nylon bedspread down and grabbed two pillowcases from the bottom after rooting around. Then I took off, carrying the lot on the chair and back into the room. Now, that’s better, I thought, standing back to admire my nice clean bed, all made up. Right, where’s me cigarettes?

  I dipped into me coat pocket and came up with the ten-cigarette box of Major and the box of matches. Now for a cup of tea. Oh, I can fill me hot-water bottle while I’m at it. Then I’ll have a few comforts. Lovely. I opened me suitcase, taking out me nightdress and washbag and the hot-water bottle and locked the case again. I’m leaving me stuff in the case. There’s nowhere to put anything, and anyway I’m getting out of here as soon as I can get another job. I know what I can do. I’ll look through the aul fella’s newspaper, and use the aul one’s phone to ring up about any jobs going.