501

by Robert Field

  So I walk with her down to the railway yard where she goes into one of the sheds and comes out with a bottle of lemonade and two cracked cups. We sit in the sun by her old caravan and I’m thinking it must be lonely, scary, here at night and she says she loves the peace and quiet, like she’s read my thoughts.

  She tells me about Henry, about his marriage in the spring, about him being in the Border counties.

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ she says, ‘about the baby.’

  It’s afterwards I think, ‘Well, how did she know about me and Henry?’ I suppose it’s possible someone could have seen us, put two and two together, or Henry could have given away it away, but we’d been so careful cos of Dad and everything. Anyway, she knew and that was that.

  But what’s filling my head is how to tell Henry. I’m thinking of his wife, newly married and looking forward to life; she might even be pregnant herself. Would she leave him? And if I told him would he come to me, settle down and get a proper job, a council house, be a bird in a cage?

  I knew in my heart that he’d never want me enough, hadn’t loved me enough. He was with his own kind, his own people, and nothing else could work.

  ‘I don’t want him to know.’

  I say it out loud and Mrs Smith says, ‘It’s for the best.’ There’s a sadness in her voice and she says, shaking her head slowly, ‘All this will pass. One day there’ll be a right time.’

  Then she goes into her caravan and comes out with a camera. It looks so old and dusty I don’t know if it’ll work. She says, ‘Take a picture of me and Katy.’

  She lifts you out of the pram and cradles you, and you try to grab her earrings and she’s smiling at you, and a few days later this picture is pushed under my door in a white envelope, and then we don’t go there again, and then I meet Jim, and then…

  And then Mum cries like her heart is breaking.

  Well done, Katy, you wanted to fucking know and now you do. So what are you going to do with it? Go storming up to the gypsy site and demand thirty-five years of fatherhood? You going to throw a family’s life into turmoil?

  And then it really sinks in. Am I going to put my arms around Pegs and call her sister?

  And then there’s the memory of the Christmas before last in the George and

  the bar is heaving and we’ve been on it all day and some silly sod is holding a sprig of mistletoe above Henry Smith’s head and Irish is going to me, ‘For God’s sake, give the man a kiss, Katy.’

  And he’s laughing and I’m laughing and I put my arms around his neck and kiss him short and sweet and, for the briefest of moments, I’m so tempted to dart my tongue between his warm lips.

  And now I’m so glad that I didn’t.

  Monday night’s darts in February.

  The George versus the Insteads.

  Maggie.

  I’m getting used to my new life. I don’t like to say it but it’s better than before – I mean after Ken was ill, of course. I’ve got my own routine sorted out now and he’s no trouble at all; I’m not talking of that shell at the Nursing Home, I’m talking about… well, it’s not something that’s easy to explain. Least of all to Kayleigh.

  She called today at lunch-time and she saw that I’d set the table for two, like I had for nearly forty years.

  ‘Mum,’ she says, ‘you shouldn’t. It’s not healthy.’

  I clear Ken’s plate away. ‘It’s just that I forget sometimes, Kayleigh.’

  She looks at me sharply then, looks for the signs we first saw in him.

  I laugh. ‘No, not like that, Kayleigh.’

  ‘Then how, Mum?’

  ‘It’s a comfort, Kayleigh. It’s like he’s still here.’

  ‘Oh Mum. Don’t. Please don’t.’

  I’m tempted to tell her then, to let her into my secret, into my world. But instead I promise myself to be more careful.

  Then Kayleigh says, ‘Me and Mike have been talking. We’re worried about you living here on your own.’

  I know what’s coming next and to forestall it, I say, ‘I’m all right; there’s no need to worry. I’m all right.’

  It comes out a bit louder than I’ve expected and that gives the words an ungrateful edge.

  Kayleigh looks hurt. ‘Okay, Mum,’ she says. ‘Okay.’

  She leaves soon after that and I put Ken’s plate back on the table and pull his chair in.

  I cut some of that thick ham he likes and slice some tomatoes on top; that with a nice crusty roll is his favourite. Then in this pretence, I make him a cup of tea and take it through to the lounge and switch on the telly for the afternoon racing. I’ve ticked off my choice of runners and I flap the newspaper out onto my lap and say,

  ‘Now what about yours, Ken.’

  We’ve always done it this way, relaxing on the sofa on a wet afternoon.

  ‘This one, Ken?’

  I mark them off for him, from the one o’clock race to the five, and then settle back to watch the meeting. And you know what? Three of his selections come in, giving him a treble and three doubles but, as always, we’ve never put a stake on. It’s our little game and I laugh. ‘We could be worth a fortune now.’

  Now, in here, it feels so warm, so comfortable.

  So right.

  So why does this knife stab at my heart?

  Later, when I’ve had a bath and smartened myself up (for what?) I let myself quietly out of the house and head for the George.

  Katy and Pegs are already on the board, warming up, and like Cilla used to say, ‘Surprise Surprise’, Scottie Dog and Irish are at the bar. Lena, looking a bit green around the gills, has just shot into the Ladies. Our opposing team, the Insteads from the Homestead pub at the top of town, are putting their drink orders in and shrugging off their coats. They’re a family team, all related in one way or another; you can see it in their faces.

  Last time we played them Irish nicknamed them the Inbreds and they weren’t amused, but I couldn’t help laughing. When I got home I told Ken about it, but he wasn’t well then and didn’t get the joke. I explained it a dozen times, hoping a smile would break on that bewildered face.

  There’s football on the telly in the other side of the bar and the Motley Crew are refereeing the game. They’re supporting Spurs – God knows why – against Aston Villa and their team are incapable of committing a single foul, or even straying offside. The Villa goal should have been disallowed and Spurs should have had at least three penalties. Old Bob offers the linesman his glasses and Jilted John says the ref must be pissed. Paddy reckons you’ve only got to breathe on a Villa player and he falls over.

  ‘Bunch of bloody poofs,’ he says.

  Paddy can remember when slide tackling was legal and the elbow was part of the game. He says it’s enough to drive a man to drink: ‘Thank God.’ So they bawl at Danny for three more pints and he bawls back that he’s busy and can’t they wait for a poxy minute.

  Our dart’s fixture is a game and a half tonight. It’s a bit like the football – end to end stuff. We pick up the team leg, and the first single with Katy, but then Irish plays the worst game of her life; she doesn’t even get down to a double. And she’s quiet tonight, it’s like she’s miles away, and she loses with a shrug of her shoulders and no comment on her opponent.

  Scottie Dog says to Katy, ‘What a load of shite that was,’ as she warms up for her game. Irish, wiping off the chalkboard, turns to say something but Katy, reading the signs, strikes up with, ‘We all have our off nights,’ and Scottie Dog says, much more quietly, ‘Och you’re right there, Katy,’ and takes a big slug of her whisky: ‘to calm me nerves down.’

  Well, it doesn’t calm her down; she misses the twenties, she misses the trebles and she hits five instead of double top. Her opponent is straight out and Irish says sarcastically, ‘Never mind, Scottie, we all have our fucking off nights.’

  And then Lena drops her game and suddenly we’re a point behind.

  Now I’m so happy, so relaxed, I can’t put a foot, or a dart, wrong
; everything is going right for me and I shoot straight out on double nineteen. So it’s three all and Pegs has to play the oldest of the Insteads who’s eighty if she’s a day.

  Scottie Dog reckons the old lady’ll be lucky to see the game out. ‘Probably leave here in a hearse.’

  ‘You won’t be far behind her,’ Irish says and Scottie Dog calls her a bog-trotting bitch who should be buying a round, not slandering decent folk. They’re still arguing when Pegs takes the oche.

  Katy says, ‘For God’s sake, shut your faces and give Pegs some support.’

  This little exchange makes me think that everyone, everyone except me, seems a bit on edge. Pegs has been biting her nails and staring into space, Irish is in a funny un, Scottie Dog is as cutting as a knife. And Lena? Well, Lena’s pregnant. And Katy? Katy’s up to her neck in it.

  On the board Pegs is nervously starting her game. She’s nervously slotting one in the sixty, two in the sixty, three in the sixty, and then looking like she can’t believe it. Katy, chalking the board, calls out, ‘One hundred and eighty.’ and she sounds like she can’t believe it either.

  Granny Instead, peering at the board like she can’t see it properly, says, ‘I did that once, long time ago mind.’

  Then she realises it’s her go and everyone’s waiting. She slowly sets her throw and looses her darts at the board. Too loose, because one drops out and she can’t reach down far enough to pick it up. One of her own team comes to the rescue and then stands on duty to pluck Granny’s darts from the board.

  Irish reckons it’s like an old people’s home in here and Danny, who’s clearing up glasses, mutters something about providing pissing care in the community.

  But anyway, Pegs is home and dry because the old lady will never shoot out in a month of Sundays.

  When it’s done, Katy says, ‘I’m glad that’s over,’ and takes her drink in a single swallow.

  It must be murder being captain.

  It’s been a strange old night and I’m not sorry to put my coat on and say goodnight to the Girls. Outside the streets are quiet and it’s a lonely walk home but I don’t mind because the porch light will be on, and the electric fire will be warming the lounge.

  But it’s not like that; not at all.

  The house is cold, dark and empty. There’s no soul in here, no breath of comfort as I stand in the hallway and listen to the silence, to the loneliness in here.

  ‘Ken,’ I whisper into the darkness. ‘Ken, are you there.’

  And of course he isn’t, he’s laying in that home, in a bed with a rubber sheet under him. That home where his eyes don’t know me, where he isn’t mine, where he’s forgotten he ever was.

  And that I ever existed.

  I sit on the stairs in the darkness and I cry for his memory. I cry until there’s no tears left and then go to bed with all the usual questions crowding into my mind.

  Why do I do all of this? Why do I tell myself these lies? Why do I pretend?

  I go over and over these questions until they’re a mantra in my head, until the rhythm of the words become less harsh, become more gentle, more soothing; words to fall asleep to.

  So I sleep and dream of a perfect world where a lifetime of happiness doesn’t end at an institution’s door.

  In the morning I wake, stretch, yawn, get up, go to the bathroom, put on my dressing gown. In the kitchen I push bread into the toaster, water in the kettle, lay the table.

  For two.

  Going home Monday night.

  The same Monday night in February.

  Irish.

  I’m walking slowly home. I’ve got a head full of gin and my stomach feels like a washing machine. All that euphoria of earlier has disappeared; I’ve left Irish in the pub and it’s Mary who is counting the steps home to Gobshite.

  I’m lingering in the street, in the cold winter breeze. I’m dragging my feet like I used on school days in a lane in County Meath. I’m wondering what my life would have been like if Gobshite had never come to our little town.

  But what’s done is done, and as he’s fond of saying, ‘There’s no going back, Irish. There’s no leaving this club; this is for life.’

  And he’s right. I’ve seen too much; I know too much. I don’t want to be buried in a lonely grave on the hillside, but that’s the only way they’ll let me go.

  Then, as always, I’m thinking of Davey. I’m thinking about the way he would cling to me, his snotty kisses, his wonder of seeing something new, his first crawl, his first steps.

  His last breath.

  I’m sobbing to myself because this life is too hard, too painful to live. It cuts into me, dicing my feelings into measures of love and hate and cowardice and lust. I weigh my strengths, my weaknesses, and the scales tip heavily away from me.

  And on the night wind my promise, my vow, whispers to me:

  ‘This time; it has to be this time.’

  Then I’m outside our house and it’s hushed and the windows are black, but I know that in the darkened bedroom Gobshite is waiting.

  He hears me come in, hears me slide the bolt behind me. He calls down, ‘Is that you, you fucking Irish slut?’

  I climb back into Irish, put her mask on my face. I call up the stairs, ‘I hope you’re full of it, sir; I’ve got a big itch to scratch.’

  ‘Get yer arse up here and you’ll soon see. Fucking prossie.’

  I go up the stairs slowly. I’m undoing my blouse, loosening my skirt, unclipping my bra, because that’s how he wants to see me. I hear him flick the bedside lamp on and I tap on the door. He calls out again.

  ‘Is that you, you fucking Irish tart?’

  I say, ‘Are you ready for me, sir?’

  ‘Ready? Ready? Get yerself in here, you’ll soon see if I’m ready or not.’

  In the bedroom he’s stretched out on the bed. He hasn’t a stitch on and his face is flushed against the paleness of his body.

  ‘What have you got for me?’

  I lift one leg onto the bed, give him a flash of stocking and more.

  ‘I thought maybe this, sir.’

  As I answer I reach for the bedside cabinet, slide open the drawer, take out the handcuffs and the manacles.

  ‘So it’s for the teasing,’ Gobshite says.

  ‘You won’t forget this one, sir.’

  So Gobshite’s crucified to the bed, eyes closed and overfilled with the wanting. He’s arching his back and his words are of the gutter, the crudeness of the trench, the cursing as the pick rises and falls. He’s desperate to be touched, desperate to begin, desperate for the tongue and the mouth.

  But I don’t.

  ‘A second,’ I say. ‘I’ll be a second.’

  I move slowly away from him and his eyes snap open.

  ‘Yer bitch,’ he says. ‘Yer can’t go.’

  He’s thinking that this is part of the game, a delicious suspension just for him.

  ‘I have to get something, sir.’

  ‘You’ll be quick.’

  ‘I’ll be quick, sir.’

  So I leave Gobshite spread out on the bed and I go down to the kitchen and, from the rack by the side of the sink, I take the longest, heaviest knife. Then, when I kiss the cold glass of Davey’s picture, I hold that knife behind my back; I don’t want him to see.

  In our room Gobshite says, ‘Yer fucking slut, this had better be good.’

  I sit on the bed and I say, ‘It’s got to stop; it’s got to end.’

  Gobshite says, ‘What? What the fuck are you talking about? Let’s get started.’

  I show him the knife and he says, ‘Jesus, Irish, this is different. This is dangerous.’

  He’s thinking that we’ve never taken it this far before and when I touch the skin above his heart with the point of the blade, he is suddenly still. But his eyes are locked onto mine.

  ‘Jesus, Irish,’ he says again. ‘Jesus.’

  And now the moment is in me, a time of contrivement, of opportunity that may never occur again. I’ve got both my han
ds on the knife and I push down into the living flesh of his body.

  I push down for all the wasted years.

  I push down for all the years of human bondage.

  I push down to kill a killer.

  Gobshite shouts, ‘What the fuck are you doing, Irish?’

  His eyes, locked onto – into – mine are suddenly startled, suddenly bewildered.

  And now this is a nightmare because I must be on a rib; the knife won’t go in. I bear all my weight, thrust with all my strength and I’m virtually lying on Gobshite. And his eyes, those eyes, hazel green and flecked with grey, are inches away from me.

  ‘Jesus, Mary. No. Why, Mary. Why?’

  Then the knife graunches off the hardness of bone, plunges into soft flesh with a suddenness that brings our faces into touching. My lips are on his in a perverse kiss. I can taste his breath, the breath of a dying man losing its warmth in my mouth. I can taste his words, unsure and unbelieving, on my tongue.

  And my knife is in his heart and I can feel the pump of his blood matching the beat of my heart. Then he jerks like a marionette, retches like a dog.

  Dies like a dog.

  So that’s it then; Gobshite emptied of blood, drenched in scarlet, lies on the bed, manacled to the four posts like a victim of the Spanish Inquisition. I free him, I give him some dignity. I lay his arms by his side, pull his legs together, slide the knife from his body, put the eiderdown over him, close his accusing eyes, turn off the light.

  I’m in the dark, in a silence of a dream where the unbelievable is believable.

  I suppose I should cry, sob into the deathly silence, but I can’t. It’s like I’m dry inside.

  I shower, wash his blood, his taste, from my body. Then I go down the stairs, quietly, unsurely. In this night it’s like the house is listening for me, tracing my passage in its rooms.

  There’s a shaft of moonlight cutting through the hallway window and it’s shining onto Davey. I can hear his voice now, the voice I never heard, and it’s in the soft lilt of the South.

  ‘Mamee,’ he says, ‘I’ve missed you.’