We were both in the shop when Josie entered. I could tell something was wrong.
‘Martha’s gone, Michael,’ Josie said.
‘What do you mean “gone”?’
‘She didn’t wait. Went this morning. She asked me to give you this.’ I took the envelope. As I opened it I could feel the tension between Josie and my mother, once pals, once passionate participants in the local am-dram scene. Ma had said terrible things about Martha’s father, Josie’s brother, all those years ago, and Josie had not spoken to Ma since. And Ma had maintained the moral high ground on the subject, though this had been largely conceded since she had somnambulated without a gobbet of clothing (in front of several witnesses) across the bog to Josie’s.
‘Shop’s looking good, Connie,’ Josie said.
‘The work never ends, Josie,’ Ma said, and I returned to Martha’s letter, which was not strictly a letter, more a one-way ticket to LA with a Post-it note on top that read: only when you’re sure.
‘That girl’s not changed,’ Josie said. ‘As impulsive and flighty as ever.’ I put the envelope in my pocket, carried on refilling the crisp boxes. I was at once relieved and annoyed with Martha that she had read correctly my hesitancy.
‘So what did it say?’ Ma said, nodding away to Josie, both of them bug-eyed, trying to divine by my movements what Martha might have communicated to me. When I shook my head, Josie pressed her lips together and looked at Ma as if to apologise for her wayward niece and the effect she’d had on my life. On her way out, Josie turned and said: ‘Connie, guess what they’re putting on in the community centre this year?’
‘What’s that?’
‘The Jailbird.’
‘That’d be a bit dated now, wouldn’t it?’
‘I hear they’re looking for an actress to play Mrs Kelsey. You should give that group a call.’
‘My acting days are long gone, Josie.’
‘You were the finest Mrs Kelsey ever seen outside Dublin. They couldn’t judge you unless it was by professional standards, you know that. You should call that group.’
The bell rang out after Josie and a heavy silence followed between Ma and me. I knew she was embarrassed for me, but she needn’t have been. Martha had detected my uncertainty and was giving me a chance to be sure. That’s how I saw it anyway. To be sure I wanted to run a bar with her in the desert, a life I might come to hate soon enough. So before Ma had a chance to grill me about the letter, I said, ‘it’s a ticket. To America. One-way and open. She says I’m to use it when I feel like it.’
‘And do you feel like it?’
‘I do.’
‘Do you feel like it now?’
‘Ma,’ I said, exasperated, ‘show me that postcard brochure that came in, will you?’ And I could feel her step quietly, like a bird, towards the place where she kept the brochures and catalogues.
*
Days and weeks passed and I didn’t hear again from Martha. Meanwhile, I established a mobile shop, two fellas driving a van selling our goods up and down the housing estates of Castlemoyne and its environs. I put chairs outside so people could sit and eat what they’d bought in the shop. I placed the carousel of postcards by the door, took charge in a way I’d never done before. And Ma let me do it. I had a one-way ticket to LA hanging over her and I could have done anything I liked with that power. She didn’t resist, even seemed to enjoy letting me have the upper-hand. She never once asked me to massage her feet and I wore what I liked in the shop. When the biddies came in they nodded. They had respect for me. They spoke quietly to Ma and didn’t stay long, as if they were a little afraid of me. Coco would come in and nod so much I thought his head would drop off.
Autumn arrived, this time wet and damp. The junk from my room remained in the black bags. Though things had gone well (with the changes I had made) at first, I nonetheless began to think that Ma took no particular triumph from having (more or less) trounced Martha Cassidy. It was me who seemed happy, not Ma. In fact, she seemed less flirtatious with Coco, generally more distracted, a little slow and depressed in the manner she would be before she would sleepwalk, like they say the warning sign is of one who has epilepsy. One day, when we were in the shop, the rain pelting down outside, I could see Ma looking sort of dejected, a raggedy piece of paper in her hands.
‘Not that bad is it?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The weather.’
‘?’
‘The weath… look, what’s wrong with you, Ma? What’s with the bit of paper?’
‘Oh. Just the number for the community group.’
‘What community group?’ I said.
‘Group doing The Jailbird in the centre. Apparently they still haven’t found their Mrs Kelsey.’
‘Oh, is that it?’ I said, assuming she’d wanted to apply and hadn’t.
‘Give them a call,’ I said, and for a second or two her mood lifted. But the furrowed brow remained. She had the look of someone who had left something very important undone.
‘Michael,’ she said, then, ominously, sort of spitting it out, ‘time is dragging.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘Well, the ticket, is what I mean. You’re still here.’
‘I know I am, Ma. Isn’t that what you wanted?’ And as I scanned her face I saw to my horror that maybe I was wrong, maybe she hadn’t wanted me to be at home with her at all.
‘Well, maybe you should have gone before, is what I meant.’
‘Before what?’ Now I was getting panicky, probably because I knew deep down that she was right. Wasn’t she always?
‘Aren’t we doing well now?’ I said, and she nodded.
‘Michael, I’ve something to tell you.’ She went to the door, closed it, pulled the shutter down, turned the sign to CLOSED. She stood suddenly taller than usual, her hands folding over in rapid ODS rinsing movements, and she was all breathy.
‘About the foxes.’ The mention of them hit me with force. I’d not gone up to our bog or thought of my foxes in weeks. I had only to think of them and I’d feel sick and my hands would shake.
‘What about them?’ I said, unable to hide the emotion rising up in my chest. I watched the colour drain from my mother’s face. Without replying, she turned and kept her back to me.
‘Ah you… don’t say you… you didn’t, Ma… did you…? don’t say it…’ and as if from nowhere I started to sob, deep hungry sobs, and from the rattling of her shoulders I could tell she was sobbing too.
‘I’m sorry, Michael. I’m so sorry. It was an awful business and I wasn’t in my right mind.’
‘Why are you telling me now for fuck’s sake, why now?’
‘Because I don’t want you to make a mistake.’
‘Mistake about what?’
‘Martha. America.’
‘Why Ma?! Why?! I loved them cubs, the fox. I loved them.’
‘How else was I going to get you up from under my feet, Michael, huh?’
‘Doing everything to keep me one minute and the next – everything to make me go! Make up your fucking mind will you, Ma?’
‘It was a drastic step, and no doubt one too far, but I was just trying to give you a little push,’ she said. I looked at her then, the paper trembling in her hand.
‘A little push?’ I said. She nodded. Straight away I took off my shop-coat (which, I am ashamed to say, I’d begun wearing of my own volition), and ran upstairs. I went to the place where I kept the envelope and saw I still had time on the ticket. I lay down on the bed, scoured the room for the few things I’d bring. I’d go as soon as possible, in the morning, for I felt now that everything was ruined with Ma and me. I could never travel around Ireland on the trains with the person who had killed my foxes (whether she was my mother or not).
The next morning I was ready to leave. I was tempted to go without saying a word. I looked around the living room, at the shelves with all her plays, books, trophies, my ancient stereo, then over towards the shop where I could hear her clic
king away at the calculator. The shop door was open and I could see the poster, all leathery and swollen-looking in the soft morning light. I saw for the first time, I think, that Coco was right: she had a strong, haughty look, just like Meryl Streep, and an intensity, an immersiveness in her role that suddenly reminded me of Eugene (and his turquoise ball). She was talented. As he had been. As I had been. How had the entire talent quotient in one family gone down the toilet, I wondered? How had that happened? As I looked at her, so poised and fierce and direct, I wondered if she could possibly have been lying about my foxes. I wasn’t sure she was capable of such an act. Not really. (And not my foxes.) I had every intention of leaving via the front of the house but I didn’t. I went into the shop. She was by now starting to get the coffee and sandwiches ready for the truckers who would be passing. The radio was off and I could tell she was deep in her thoughts. She looked up at me and smiled.
‘What time’s your bus, Son?’
‘Eight,’ I replied.
‘Well. Good luck. Here, have a few plums and sandwiches for the journey,’ and she took up a small paper bag that she had filled, rolled it down by the cuff and handed it to me.
‘Good-bye, Ma,’ I said, and I was about off when she called me back.
‘Michael?’
‘Yes, Ma?’
‘There’s something I want to ask you. Something Martha said when she was here. About what Eugene said to you in the hospital.’
‘It’s nothing. You don’t want to hear.’
‘Tell me, won’t you?’
‘You know.’
‘Tell me yourself, now you’re going. Please.’ Her voice sounded weak.
‘Ah, you do know. You do. It’s not like you always say, Ma. Eugene didn’t forget to take his insulin. He knew what would happen if he missed that shot. Eugene wasn’t ever going to be a doctor, Mam. It’s not what he wanted. Tell her it’s not for you, I said. But he couldn’t hurt you, he said. Couldn’t let you down with all you’d sacrificed. He was hanging round that crowd in the town, drinking the head off himself, and I worried because if he wasn’t careful he’d miss the insulin. He knew what would happen if he missed that shot. The kidneys would fail and he’d go blind. And it did happen. And he told me it was because he saw the rest of his life before him and none of it belonged to him. So he let it slip. Do you have any idea what it’s like not to own your own life, Ma? Well, I’ll tell you. All there is ahead of you is time, and for Eugene it was endless time, time and needles. He felt he had no life. And I knew he would do that one day.’ It felt good to tell her the last words Eugene had said to me. She had no clue, I think, just how much her own squashed dreams had shaped, and warped, her sons. No fucking clue. Until, maybe, she saw that I would not take my last chance out of Dodge.
‘Good cut on you that suit.’
‘I’ll send it back when I get settled.’
‘No need.’
‘Don’t want to be wearing a dead man’s suit, Ma. Only it’s a change. I’ll send it.’
‘Did Bucky Lawless cut your hair?’ I nodded.
‘Stylish it is.’
‘I’ll go out the house way.’
‘Good luck to you, Son.’
‘Goodbye, Ma,’ I said. I did not kiss her.
*
It was a dark, frosty morning as I walked to the bus stop. There was a long queue already formed. A few men in suits; some women, one in an ultramarine stewardess’ uniform; quite a few young men in twos, mostly with big duffle bags; a whole family (all of them quiet and downcast) with a ton of suitcases. Every man and his dog is getting out of Moyne, I thought to myself. Once the bus had left the towns and was onto the motorway, I gazed out the window at the bumpy Monaghan landscape. It looked just as it did in our postcards. Lots of sheep and cattle and big houses (though the postcards, naturally enough, missed all the houses I saw that were now empty, or for sale, or unfinished, some of them almost fully returned to nature) all surrounded by lush deep-green fields. And until we reached Louth, a scattering of lakes, some covered in a thick blue mist with swans on them. The hay in the fields was all still and sort of smug-looking from having been recently gathered and baled. The hay done, the farmers were now at the barley and it was short and blunt where it had been cut already. The land was busy with autumn activity and was full of harvesters and tractors. Some of the farmers I saw I knew. I felt a lump in my throat as I looked out at the morning light, all frail and black-tinged over the fields, and I tried to tell myself it would be the death of me that land (I knew well that Maguire in Kavanagh’s Great Hunger ends his days a ‘hungry fiend’ who ‘screams the apocalypse of clay’ and that if I were to remain I was destined to have much the same kind of half-buried existence; even Kavanagh himself had gotten out and he’d loved the place) and not to get too upset about leaving it, though tears rolled down my face nonetheless. As the bus approached Dublin airport, I felt a shift, a loosening (my breathing deepened), as if all of a sudden I could feel time and its passing, and those years with Ma in the house and shop, when I thought I’d be stuck forever in Moyne (and half wanting to be stuck there), were somehow laid to rest, and I felt ready for whatever lay ahead.
Notes
The Badminton Court
The central image of this story is based on the painting ‘The Badminton Game’ by David Inshaw.
The Visit
In 2000, President Bill Clinton and his family visited the town of Dundalk on the Irish border as part of the Good Friday Agreement.
The Lagoon
There were sixteen people who ‘disappeared’ during ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. The Provisional IRA admitted responsibility for thirteen of the sixteen, while one was admitted by the INLA. No attribution has been given to the remaining two. To date the remains of nine victims have been recovered.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the editors of the following publications, where some of these stories, or versions of them, have appeared: The Dublin Review, Irish Pages, The Warwick Review, Wasafiri Magazine, Cyphers, Brace: A New Generation in Fiction (published by Comma Press), Verbal Arts Magazine, Wordlegs, The Frogmore Papers. ‘The Congo’ was shortlisted for the 2009 Asham Award. ‘Blood’ won First Prize in the Spinetinglers 2009 Dark Fiction short story competition. ‘The Visit’ won First Prize in the 2010 Wasafiri New Writing Awards and appears in the 2012 Best British Short Stories Anthology (published by Salt, edited by Nicholas Royle). Thanks to Penny Thomas for reading and editing, to C.V. for his careful reading, and to my sister, Tracey McCarrick, for her observations on ‘The Tribe’. All characters in The Scattering are fictional, and though some places and events are real, for the purposes of fiction-making they are often depicted without geographical veracity.
About the Author
Jaki McCarrick lives in Dundalk and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, gaining a Master of Philosophy Degree, Creative Writing – Distinction. Before this Jaki gained a BA Performing Arts, First Class Honours Degree at Middlesex University. She has also completed an RNT Directors Course, 2001, and has studied for a PhD thesis on the work of Patrick Kavanagh.
Jaki has won many awards for her work including: Winner of the 2005 SCDA National Playwriting Competition for The Mushroom Pickers; Shortlisted for the Sphinx Playwriting Award 2006, Bruntwood Prize 2006, Kings Cross Award 2007 for The Moth-Hour; Winner of the 2010 Papatango New Writing Award, Shortlisted for the 2009 Adrienne Benham Award and the 2010 Yale International Drama Award for Leopoldville; Shortlisted for the 2012 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Winner of the Galway Theatre Festival Playwriting Competition for Belfast Girls (developed during McCarrick’s attachment to the National Theatre, London in 2012). For fiction her prizes include first prize in the 2009 Northern Ireland Spinetinglers Dark Fiction competition for ‘Blood’, shortlisted for the 2009 Asham Award for short fiction for ‘The Congo’, winner of the 2010 Wasafiri Prize for New Writing for ‘The Visit’ (also selected for The 2012 Anthology of Best British Short Stories). For poetry she w
on the first Liverpool Lennon (Paper) Poetry Competition, judged by Carol Ann Duffy, for her poem, ‘The Selkie of Dorinish’ (2010), and was shortlisted for 2012 Patrick Kavanagh Award and Cork Literary Review Manuscript Competition (in which she was placed 2nd). Jaki has recently been awarded a writing residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris commencing April 2013.
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© Jaki McCarrick 2013
ISBN: 978-1-78172-033-2
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