by Martha Long
‘Do you not get medication?’ a new patient asked me, with her hands wrapped around each other, scraping her feet along the carpet and swinging her head from the trolley back to me, anxious not to lose her place in the queue.
‘Nope!’ I said, flopping down on the couch.
‘Why is that, I wonder?’ the new patient asked the ceiling, taxing her head over the idea I was being deprived of happy pills.
‘They want to observe me in my natural state,’ I said, throwing my voice to the nurses.
Esther gaped at the ceiling, sucking in her cheeks and blowing out her nostrils. ‘Here! If you manage to stay quiet for a few more minutes, I’ll open the door and let you all out myself.’
‘Ah, Esther! Now I know what it is I like about you so much.’
‘Don’t tell me!’ roared Esther. ‘I’m trying to concentrate here!’
I said nothing, feeling she was ready to upend the whole trolley. That woman could do with a holiday in here.
The door opened and it was a quick shuffle out the door. ‘Single file!’ screamed Esther from the back, as we pushed and shoved our way down the stairs, trying to get past the ones stopping to have a think.
We made it down the stairs and onto the passage with smoke coming out of the back of my hair. I whirled around, staring into the face of the new patient. She stared back, her eyes crossing, with the cigarette burning red stopped halfway to her open mouth.
‘Watch what you’re doing!’ I screamed, madly putting out the fire in my singed hair. I whipped it around, staring at it, flaking off the singed bits, and roared in an almighty rage, ‘You bloody fucking eegit! Look what you’ve done to my hair!’
The woman started crying, and Esther grabbed me. ‘That’s it! I’ve had enough of you. Come on! Back to the ward.’
My chest went cold, and anger and panic went shooting around my belly. I could feel my head turning cold from the shock. Lock-up! Suddenly I was back to me senses. ‘Ah, no, Nurse! I’m sorry!’
I turned to the patient and said, ‘I’m sorry, please don’t upset yourself. I didn’t mean it.’ I put my hand on her arm, really meaning it. ‘I was just upset about my hair! Nurse! Let me go. I’m making progress. It would only set me back if I’m sent back to the ward.’
We stared at each other. ‘OK,’ she said, relenting. ‘But I’m warning you! Any more trouble, and the doctor will be hearing about it. You can’t go upsetting the other patients.’
‘No! No!’ I said, shaking my head up and down, agreeing with everything.
‘Go on, then! And don’t set foot outside in those grounds,’ she warned.
‘Absolutely not!’ I said, taking off for the restaurant. As I moseyed down the passage, I could see a crowd down outside the chapel. Monks were pouring out, with smoke billowing all around them, and the smell of incense hit my nose.
I put my head in the restaurant; no sign of Nikki. I looked back down the passage to where the monks were, and she was in the thick of them.
‘Nikki! What are you doing? Come on! Let’s go into the restaurant.’
‘Take a look at this!’ she whispered, her eyes on stalks, waving at me to come down. She was all excited.
I saw the parade carrying out a coffin and waved at her to follow me, then headed for the front door. ‘Come on out this way,’ I said, when she came puffing up behind me.
‘It’s a funeral! One of the monks must be dead!’ she said.
‘Yeah! Come on this way, we’ll be able to see it better.’ I galloped out the front door, heading left, then left again, with her on my tail. We stopped to see the procession heading past us along the path, making for the monks’ quarters, on their way to the graveyard. A coffin was slowly being carried by six monks, their heads lowered, covered with the cowls of their brown habit. A long procession of monks, their faces hidden, with their hands wrapped inside the sleeve of their wide habits, were singing the Latin laments for the dead. Leading the whole funeral procession was the Russian monk. He was energetically swinging the thurible, sending incense smoke billowing from left to right. I knew it was him, as I could see the golden hair blowing out from underneath the cowl.
I stopped dead in my tracks, gaping with my mouth open. ‘Would you look at that?’ I said in a whisper, the sight taking away my breath. ‘It looks like something out of a Fellini film.’
The Russian lifted his head sideways on seeing us watching him. It probably occurred to him I was not supposed to be out here! The cowl dropped back off his head, letting the wind blow through his hair. It danced around his head, framing his chiselled face, and the pale watery sunshine picked out the threads of gold running through it. For a split second, his incredibly green eyes lit on us. Then he slowly lifted his arm, covering his head with the cowl, his eyes moving away from us and staring into the distance as we watched his face disappear.
‘My God! That monk is like a Greek god!’ breathed Nikki. ‘I have never seen anyone so handsome,’ she said, turning her head slowly to me, her eyes wide in her head and her mouth catching flies.
‘Yeah!’ I agreed in a whisper. ‘Fellini would give his eye teeth to witness this scene. It is so medieval,’ I said in wonder.
The procession vanished down a path and around a bend, heading for the graveyard. We couldn’t follow, it being out of bounds to us – you have to be a monk. I stared down the path, watching as the monks now disappeared. I continued to stare as their ghosts lingered. Then the mist slowly lifted and the air cleared. A faint, distant, ancient memory stirred deep inside me. A feeling of a more brutal and yet sacred past. I stood rooted, time stood still, a feeling of déjà vu sweeping through me.
I shook my head, closing my mouth, and felt the cold breeze lifting me off the ground. I was light as a feather. Just a bag of bones, really. The place seemed lonely now the monk was busy elsewhere, and I looked at Nikki. She looked so substantial, full of life. Living as she wished, working, happy and getting on with life. I could feel the pull of the grave again. A terrible feeling of sadness and loneliness washed over me. I’m tired of living. There’s nothing left I want from life. I don’t need it.
I turned, heading in the door, Nikki trailing behind me. I stood looking around me, wondering what to do.
‘What’s wrong?’ Nikki asked, following my eyes around the room. ‘Are you feeling down?’
‘A bit,’ I said. ‘Sorry, I’m not much company.’
Nikki looked out at the fountain, a silence between us. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you sit down over there? I just want to run to the shop. I suppose I better take my car. Look, sit down somewhere, and I’ll be back.’
‘OK,’ I said, making for a seat in the corner and staring out at the fountain.
The emptiness inside me would probably lift if the monk was here. I wonder why I feel so strongly about him. The one and only time I got involved with a man, he too was like a Greek god to me. He still is. Nothing and nobody can or ever will open my heart like that again. When that flame died, I walked a long and lonely road, sometimes with the terror of getting lost in the dark. There was only one other soul with me, and she needed me to lead the way.
41
* * *
I had had my whole life ahead of me. I had just started my first job as a junior typist in an office. No more searching through the ‘Domestics Wanted’ in the Evening Herald. Now I was on my way, going up in the world. I had managed to get myself off the streets when Sister Eleanor refused to take me back.
Life was great! I got myself a little bedsit down on the quays, not too far from where I was born. Everything was going fine. But, of course, I got fired! Lost the job. No problem! I landed another job with an engineering place. The two bosses, they were partners. One of them had a terrible temper, but he was old and his bark was worse than his bite. So I took no notice.
He had eight sons, all grown up. They worked in the firm. One of them was brain damaged from a motorcycle accident. He used to arrive in with his wife shuffling in behind him wearing a h
uge hat, like she was on her way to Ascot. The make-up on her face was so thick, she obviously shovelled it on with a trowel.
‘Martha! Make me a cup of tea!’ he would bark.
‘No! Make it yourself!’
‘Mo! You stay here. I’m going down to tell my daddy on her.’ Then he would rush next door and bring in a chair for her to sit down. Then rush off down the passage to tell his daddy on me.
Mo sat across the room, staring balefully at me for being mean to her husband. I sat staring at Mo, enjoying the diversion, admiring Mo’s lovely clothes and wondering where she bought her hats and why she has to wear so much make-up. The silence thickened. Then she started.
‘Will ye go an get Felix for me? I don’t like him leaving me on me own,’ she moans and whines.
‘He’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Mo. Don’t worry,’ I reassured her.
Sure enough, old Neddy would give an almighty roar at Felix. ‘Will ye get the hell outa here and stop going on about yer bloody tea! OUT!’ Then he would put his head out the door, and roar, ‘Martha! Martha! Where the bloody hell is that young one? I’m going to fire her!’
I leapt up. ‘Yes, Mr Hammond!’
‘Why don’t ye answer me when I call you?’
‘I didn’t hear ye, Mr Hammond.’
‘Get on the bloody phone and tell my wife to come here this minute and take him home!’
‘Who, Mr Hammond?’
‘Bloody Felix! Who do you think?’
‘Felix! Where’s Felix?’ Mo moaned from the corner.
‘What about Mo, Mr Hammond?’
‘ARE YOU TRYING TO TRY MY PATIENCE?’
‘Right! And Mo too, Mr Hammond.’
‘I’m persecuted with the lot of them. How the hell am I supposed to earn a living with all these good-for-nothing wasters around me? Huh?’
‘Tsk, tsk! You have an awful lot to put up with all right, Mr Hammond,’ I muttered at him, shaking my head, looking very sorrowful.
He would then turn his huge bulk and stamp back down to his office, muttering under his breath. Then give his office door an almighty bang. Felix came flying back into the office.
‘Martha! My daddy said you are to make me a cup of tea or he’s going to fire you.’
‘Nope! He did not. And if you don’t stop tormenting me, I’m going straight up to tell your daddy on YOU!’
‘Right! I’ll give you two cigarettes.’ He took out his packet of ten Majors.
‘No, make it four!’
‘Felix, gimme a cigarette,’ Mo moaned from the corner. She was now slumped, buried under her hat, exhausted from all the waiting.
‘Mo, I gave you a packet yesterday!’
‘Look! These are all I have left!’
‘Martha!’ He twirled around to me, always acting and trying to sound like his father. ‘I will give you three, and when I come again you can make my tea for nothing.’
‘OK!’ I grabbed the ciggies, making them their tea. Poor Felix was forty years old, and his wife was in her thirties, but they were so innocent. I had great gas haggling with him every time he came steaming into the office. Nothing ever changed. His father would run him out the door, I would haggle for the cigarettes, and his mammy would come and collect them, promising to take Mo shopping. That pleased him. He adored his wife, and Mammy would buy him something nice, too. It was the only way she could tear him away from the tormented daddy.
I sat in the office, waiting for the switchboard to ring. There was nothing to look at except the four grey walls. I had a desk and a chair – that was it. The little window was high up in the wall, to let in air. So, for enjoyment, I would phone up the secretary – she did the typing for the bosses, and her office was down the end of the corridor next to Neddy. There was only one other female, an elderly lady who did the accounts. She was nice, but very prim and proper. So Becky the secretary would look in the paper for ‘Domestics Wanted’, and I would phone up looking for the job, while Becky listened in on the extension.
‘Hello! Hello!’ I would gasp. ‘I’m lookin te know if ye want me te come an work fer ye! I’m a fierce hard worker. I love the scrubbin a blankets! And dhere’s nothin I like better then dhe gettin down on me hands an knees an scrubbin the aul floors! I do enjoy the aul hard work! I would be cleanin them windas fer ye about every other week! I’m from the heart of the counthry! An I’m a firm believer dha hard work never kilt anybody! Now! Can I have the job?’
Becky and myself howled our heads off, laughing at the gobshites thinking they had got a right eegit coming to work for them. It was a bit quiet after that. But the job was not demanding, and I was happy there.
One day I walked back to the office after lunch with a book in my hand and reached down to switch the kettle on to make myself a cup of tea. I was blown across the room and landed about twenty feet away, slammed into the wall. I had put my hand into an exposed electrical socket. The cover was broken. I lay like a rag doll, sliding down the wall, when the men from the trade counter came rushing up. They picked me up and went to take a look at the wall.
‘Lucky you weren’t standin in tha puddle a water when ye touched tha socket! Or ye wouldn’t be standin here now!’
‘Yeah!’ I gasped, wondering what happened.
That experience, well, it made me very alert! I’m always wide awake now, always checking everything. Is the gas off? Are the plugs pulled out of the sockets? Jaysus! I drive meself mad.
I would wander home in the evenings, thinking what I would have for my tea. I earned four pounds a week. Two pounds ten shillings went for the rent. That left one pound ten shillings for food, heating and everything else.
I wore my overcoat in the bedsit to keep warm in the winter. Forget the heat. So it was mostly the one-ring cooker that used the money. It was a shilling for the electric meter, so to boil an egg and keep the light bulb going for about three hours, it cost me seven shillings a week. Yeah, and I smoked. That’s another reason why me eyes lit up at the sight of Felix.
I passed my old house in the Liberties every evening on the way home. The house had been knocked down, and the land was now used as a car park. There was a fence around it now, and it was all locked up. I stopped every evening to gaze at the hole in the wall where the fireplace had been. That was all that was left standing! The old yellow Georgian bricks were black from age, but somehow they were a tie to my past. I knew I had belonged somewhere once. I felt a bit alone now, out in the world on my own. Having put the ma and everything else behind me, I still had this place. Where I had some happy memories before we met Jackser.
I would wander on, eventually arriving home to my little room with the bed in the corner and the wardrobe and two chairs and the table under the window, and the sink and little one-ring cooker beside it in the corner. It was home.
Then I got a boyfriend. I felt like every other young girl, doing all the normal things they do. Having a boyfriend was one of them. It meant someone wanted me.
The year brought very bad news for me. I stood in the old doctor’s room, listening to him as he explained I could have the baby adopted. We stared at each other as he shook his head sadly and told me I should contact the organisation to help unmarried mothers. I could go away and nobody need ever find out about it. When I had my baby, I could give it up and start my life over again.
From then on it was a nightmare, keeping it secret from everyone. If the nuns from the convent found out, they might do to me what had happened to other girls. I could be locked up in a Magdalen convent!
I kept very quiet. Every morning I woke up, for one split second I would forget. Then I would turn over to get out of bed and it would hit me. I am pregnant! Dear Jesus! What am I going to do? I started to vomit straight away, and it never stopped. I lost a lot of weight. I was now locked in a world of my own. The same problem going around and around in my head, day after day, minute after minute.
I went into the Catholic organisation in the city centre to talk to the priest who ran it.<
br />
‘So! You can go down to our unmarried mothers’ home in the country. When would you like to go? The sooner the better. You will be looked after and won’t have to worry about people finding out. When the child is born, and the papers are signed, you will be free again.’
‘No, thanks, Father. I have a job, and when I start to show the pregnancy, then I will come.’
He sized me up, looking me up and down, seeing I was already showing. ‘Come back to us when you are six months pregnant. OK?’ he said, standing up and putting his hand on my shoulder and showing me the door. ‘Come here, and we will make all the arrangements. You can be gone by the next day.’
‘Thanks, Father.’ I looked up at his soft white face, his eyes closing down, all business. He held the door, ready to close it as soon as I walked away. I hesitated, wanting something more. But not knowing what it was. Then turned, heading back down the stairs, hearing the priest slam the door shut behind me.
42
* * *
I turned my face away from the wind as I stepped out into the dark and bitterly cold morning. I felt dazed. I stood for a minute to get my senses back and let people walk around me and into me. They clicked their tongues in annoyance and stepped around me. I stood, staring at the faces, wishing I was related to one of them. I wanted to cry for me mammy, but there was no mammy. Sally’s face wafted into my vision, and I saw her helplessness, and I turned the vision away. Now I know how she felt. But I’m not her, and I never will be.
A girl pushed past me, keeping her head down, and rang the doorbell behind me. She kept her eyes peeled on the ground and pulled the scarf around her head to make sure her face was hidden. She’s just like me. I gave a sidelong glance to see what she was like, but all I could see was her bent back. I moved off, wondering what people would say if they knew. But I know the answer to that. They would look at me with curiosity – an Unmarried Mother! Then drop their eyes, closing me out, and be glad it’s not them. People don’t change. I’d seen it often enough with the ma growing up. And the nuns would be dying to get their hands on me. They certainly didn’t like me. I was sent to them because I’d gotten myself into trouble with the robbing. They never forgave me for bringing their convent into disrepute. Yeah! They didn’t take my sort, they told me.