‘You can get up now, Josephine,’ Sister Anne shrilled when I’d finished.
Josephine was given a hand up by one of the girls. Some of the others sniggered into their sleeves. She left a blurred white shadow on the ground behind her. It made it look like she was fat.
‘Now, we need a name for her. What will we call her?’
Betty, someone said, then Genevieve, Dolores – until finally Mar shouted ‘Ezmerelda!’ and everyone turned to look at her. She grinned at me. All heads nodded eagerly: Ezmerelda it was. Sister Anne was working us into a right frenzy. There was nothing we liked better than this sort of feckless exercise, a good forty-five minutes of light relief from the deathly boredom of maths or Irish.
I tried to ignore Josephine, but felt compelled to watch her all the same. I had that exact feeling I’d had in primary school when we were all paraded in our underwear in front of the district nurse. The boys had to show the nurse inside their pants, so that she could make sure everything was in order. I remember feeling my nipples stiff as little apple pips through my cotton vest. Then the prick of the booster injection on my forearm.
One girl was called up to draw Ezmerelda’s face. She did so with such avid attention to detail that it got on Sister Anne’s nerves.
‘Now, Claire, you needn’t worry too much. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just so we get an idea,’ she said.
Then she took the blue chalk herself and went on: ‘Now, where would I find the breasts?’
She scanned the room, and went back to Claire.
‘Claire?’
Claire pointed.
‘Yes, that’s right. Very good. Silly question, I know!’
And she drew two little eggs, sunny side up. Claire blushed right to the roots of her hair, and so did Josephine.
Sister Anne outlined the arms and legs.
‘And what do we find here?’ she asked, pointing somewhere roughly around the armpit.
‘Hair?’ someone croaked, just as the silence was getting too much.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said.
And she drew a little bush either side of each sunny egg.
And on she went, until she got to the vagina, the womb, the fallopian tubes, which looked like a girl skipping, the way she drew them.
It turned out that this lesson was not about sex. We knew about that already. It was about the smell of the sex, and how important it was to wash and deodorise those areas where hair had recently sprouted. I wondered, as Sister Anne said the Hail Mary at the end of class, if she ever looked at herself, naked, after a bath.
Mar and I sat in the cloakroom at elevenses, as we always did.
‘Well, what’s the matter with you? I saw you moping up the lane this morning.’
‘I was up half the night,’ I mumbled, tearing the plastic wrapper on my snack bar with my teeth. Mar bit into her apple.
‘Up half the night with what? Are you sick? What happened you?’
‘Don’t laugh, but I think I’m in love.’
‘Ah, would you give over,’ she said, roaring with laughter. Bits of apple and spittle flew out of her mouth.
I knew she’d react like this. It was a weekday: where on earth would I have seen or met a boy to fall in love with? I hadn’t been near the shops. And there’d been no mention of him before. As far as she was concerned I had the hots for one of her neighbours, the one I’d played a game of pool with once in her garage.
He’d been going up to the graveyard for as long as I could remember, I told her, but only the night before had it suddenly occurred to me – like a flash of lightning, was what I said – that he was the one. I told her about the dream I’d had that morning. That seemed to convince her.
‘So who is he?’
‘He’s a boarder up at St Colum’s.’
‘You don’t even know his name? For fuck’s sake.’
We took our pimply legs down from the bench opposite to let two girls pass, then slouched back down again, our heads sinking into dozens of maroon-coloured coats and blazers. Mar took another bite out of her apple. The bell rang.
‘I suppose we’ll see him at the Colum’s disco anyway.’
‘Do you think we’ll be let go?’
‘No,’ she smiled, ‘but so.’
There was a list of things to do stuck to one of the cupboards in the kitchen. A sure sign there was something wrong with Mam: she’d never written a list before in her life. She just got on and did things. There was no question of sitting about making notes.
I could hear her on the landing. She had the radio on.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ she croaked when I asked her if she was okay, her head peering round the top of the stairs. She had that deranged look on her face she got after spending more time than is good for anyone ironing sheets and underpants. She was a little peaky-looking too.
‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Me? I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Dad said you weren’t feeling too well.’
‘Jesus, that man can keep nothing to himself. I’m fine. I had the one glass of wine and it didn’t agree with me is all.’
Blue was yelping to be let in. She must have heard me being dropped off at the gate from school. She’d stopped barking suddenly. Then there was a loud knock, and another – a thud. I found her ready to throw herself against the door for a third time when I went downstairs.
‘You’re weird, Blue,’ I said, crouching down to pet her.
She looked up at me and wagged her tail, mouth hanging open for air, as if she’d run round the world to welcome me home. The fur on her belly and legs was soaking wet, and she was raring to jump up on me, her nails scratching the parquet floor. I turned and she followed, panting.
Mam was in the bathroom upstairs. I stood on the landing beside her ironing board, holding my breath, wondering if I should ask her again if she was okay. The iron was still hot. She’d put out clean linen for my bed.
‘Mam, don’t worry about changing my sheets. I’ll do it myself.’
She didn’t respond. I went and got the blow-dryer out from the drawer of her dressing table, plugged it in in my room, and pointed it at Blue. Her legs quivered.
‘It’s for your own good. If you want to come anywhere near me. You’re soaking wet.’
Her hair was starting to whiten – around her mouth and eyes, and around the star-shaped patch on her breast. She was forty-nine in dog years – half my age if I were a dog. If I were a dog I might be dead, I was thinking.
Then I heard the click of the lock on the bathroom door and Mam’s standing looking down at me and at Blue.
‘Now what have I told you about blow-drying the dog in here? You’ve my heart broke.’
She had a thing about dog hairs getting into the carpet and onto my duvet and curtains.
‘And that awful smell—’
Her eyes were bloodshot.
‘For God’s sake, Mam,’ I said. I couldn’t think what else to say, and I couldn’t not say anything. I didn’t want her noticing I’d seen how red her eyes were. ‘There’s no hairs . . .’
She turned abruptly and walked out, Blue skulking at her heels.
Gran was watching an old World Series of Poker video, with Lazy Bones tucked snugly under her right arm. It was raining. I could hear it thrumming on the windows. I glanced up at the road. No sign of him. It was a little early yet. The air was so heavy with rain I worried I might not see him if he passed by. Dad was out the back, breaking branches over his knee, setting another fire. I stood at the kitchen window and gazed out at him, wanting to cry. I wandered from room to room, avoiding going up to my own, where Mam was fussing over my unmade bed, the clothes on my floor, the dog hair, her eyes still sore-looking. Without bothering to change out of my school uniform as I usually would, I threw on one of Dad’s old jackets and skulked off to the graveyard. I didn’t turn to hear what Dad said as I passed him. I couldn’t be sure, anyway, if it was me he was talking to or himself, as he often talked to
himself, and I didn’t want to have to explain to him where I was going at this time of night and in this kind of weather and with my school uniform still on me.
A drizzle of sweat had formed on my back and on my forehead before I’d even reached the top of the drive. I could feel my face reddening as I put my hand up to pull strands of hair away: they were sticking to my skin, catching at the corners of my mouth and in my eyelashes. There was no sign of anyone on the road. I turned up left to the graveyard, walking in on the grass verge. I waved at passing cars though I couldn’t see the drivers’ faces. Headlights were blurred in the rain. As I turned past the cottage and walked up through the side gate I realised I wasn’t alone.
He was there. Earlier than he’d been the evening before, earlier than he should have been, standing in the same place, staring off into the distance. I went suddenly cold. I tried to get a good look at him, but it made me feel kind of dizzy, like I might faint. And the rain. And again we were too far apart for me to make out any detail.
He didn’t seem to notice me. I kept walking uphill, fingers tearing at old bits of tissue and chewing-gum wrapper inside the pockets of Dad’s coat. I could hear Blue panting behind me, which worried me for a moment – he might hear her too – but the noise from the rain on the trees would have drowned out any small sound. Blue ran ahead of me.
I felt so exposed up there – not just to the rain and the wind, but to him. I’m sure he’d seen me there before – he must have – but before it hadn’t bothered me. I hadn’t thought how unbearable it could be for his eyes to be on me, though it’s what I wanted more than anything. I pulled the mac down below my backside, held it taut, and sat on the edge of the slimy slate beneath the stone cross, praying he wouldn’t notice. Blue was sniffing around the headstones, sticking her nose into plastic wreathes, trying to bite blades of grass. She could smell herself on things. She chomped the air and sneezed. She was moving further and further away from me, down the path. Towards him.
Then he stood up and held his hand out to her, and I could just make out his voice calling to her, and him whistling. And my hearing seemed to go: there was a sudden hush in my ears like hailstones. I was burning hot, though my skin was stinging cold. The boy was down on his haunches then, and Blue clawing his knees. She only did that with people she knew.
I didn’t dare look straight down at them. Instead I looked the other way, pretended to myself I was looking at something in the trees, resting my head in my blue hands in an effort to shield my face from him and cool my cheeks. I was sure my thoughts were there, clear as day, to be read. I couldn’t just up and leave. I was stuck.
I don’t know how long I was there but my hair was sopping, and I could feel the wet soak into my skirt, and I thought, all of a sudden, if I stayed a moment longer it would be too late. Too late for what, I didn’t know. I drew myself up slowly, hands still in pockets, and sauntered back down the way I’d come, beneath the yew trees. I didn’t once look over at him. My legs nearly went from under me a couple of times as I walked down the laneway and on to the road. And I didn’t look back once to see if Blue would follow, though I heard her a few minutes later, just as I could see home.
The kitchen was warm with smells from the oven, and I felt ravenous with hunger. Mam was back to her cheery self, fanning the smoke from pork chops under the grill with a tea towel. There were spuds on the boil, and steam rising from other pots of vegetables. She smiled at me as I walked in.
‘Look at you. You’re soaked.’
She told me dinner would be five minutes, and didn’t I have good timing, and would I call Dad. No word about where I’d been or what I’d been up to. The table was already set. Gran’s beanbag tray was laid with cutlery and salt and pepper sachets. For some reason, since she’d come out of hospital, Gran preferred those sachets, even though they were obviously much more difficult for her to use. I went to the hall door and called Dad, listening for my own voice echoing.
‘I think he might be outside still, love.’
‘But it’s dark outside. What’s he doing?’
I was uncomfortable in my wet clothes, and irritated all of a sudden by Mam. And here was Blue, who’d just nearly given me heart failure, acting as if nothing had happened, the stupid dog.
I could just make out a tiny blotch of red where Dad’s fire had been as I stood at the back door, and the smell of damp burned wood, but no sign of him. I shouted into the darkness. His voice ghosted out from the shed, and a dull beam of light from his torch fell on the gravel. Blue ran out through my legs towards the shed, barking at him, then back at me, lingering halfway between us, unsure of what to do next. Dad appeared, patted her roughly on the head, and she dashed into the house ahead of him. His face was ruddy with the cold and his hands smeared with green and black mould and sap from the wood.
‘You’re to wash your hands before you come anywhere near the table,’ Mam told him.
There was small talk over dinner that evening – about the Christmas holidays, and the new gravel the Reillys had bought for their driveway. Gran ate, as usual, in front of the television in the front room. I cleared the table afterwards and put the kettle on. Mam told me to get the chocolate Hobnobs out of the cupboard, like a good girl. We only ever had them when we had visitors.
‘Now sit down, love,’ she said, and told me, in a bit of a roundabout way, that she was going to have a baby.
I said nothing.
Mam was forty-four. That was way too old to be having babies as far as I was concerned. I suddenly felt a terrible itch at the back of the knees from the damp tights I had on me.
Dad said nothing.
The first thing I asked was ‘How long?’ I might as well have asked them right out when they’d last done it. It made me feel sick, talking about this here in our kitchen. After dinner. On a school night. They were still at it. At their age. Under this roof. While I lay innocently tucked up in bed. All the filthy details rushed into my head then: they mustn’t have used a condom, or, worse than that, they had used one and it had come off or broken. My mind’s eye was forced to zoom in to the moment of its removal from the penis. (I couldn’t think of it as anything other than a ‘penis’. The names the girls at school used seemed inappropriate.) I thought about gobbing on her.
‘Baby’s due tenth of May,’ Mam said.
‘Tenth of May, love,’ Dad said.
He was turning one of Gran’s sachets of salt over and over between his thumb and forefinger. It made a tiny swishing noise like surf.
I fucking heard you, I wanted to say. Shut your fucking mouth.
Then, to make things worse, they suggested that I move to the big room downstairs so that they could use my room as a nursery. I’d been in that room since I could remember. But that didn’t seem to concern either one of them.
The whole time Mam was stroking my shoulder with one hand while her other lay protectively on her belly. It was too much. I tore out of the room and bolted myself into my bedroom for the rest of the night. They didn’t follow me. They knew better than to do that.
That night I dreamed all the little orphan girls were living with us. Only there wasn’t enough room in the house so I had to sleep outside in the shed. And I watched them through the kitchen window, all bawling and clawing at my mother for milk. And then I was watching myself watching them through the window and I woke up in a cold sweat.
Mar was warming herself on the classroom radiator, her skirt hoiked up just under her buttocks, her long skinny legs resting on the back of one of the plastic chairs.
‘You look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’
I couldn’t tell her. I don’t know why. I told her I hadn’t slept.
‘Thinking about your man again?’ She wiggled her hips. ‘Disco is on the twen-tee-fourth. I heard on the bus this morning.’
I felt a little faint with excitement.
Mar underlined ‘come’ in the last line of ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ in English class that morning – ‘Of what is pas
t, or passing, or to come’ – and pushed her book in front of me. I didn’t even laugh. Usually I would. Usually we’d both nearly choke laughing. But it just made me want to cry. And the words ‘perne in a gyre’ spinning round in my head.
After lunch we went out to the woods to collect specimens of moss and fern and suck insects into pooters. Beetles, mostly. And woodlice. I walked a little behind the rest of the class, the sleeves of my jumper pulled down over my hands. I had this weird feeling I was being watched, and even glanced quickly behind me a few times to make sure. The trees were bare; I could see right to the road; there wasn’t a soul about. Not even a car passing. The sky was milky blue. It looked as though it might snow.
Soon the walls of my bedroom would be painted in pastel shades for the baby, and my bed replaced by a cot. And how was I going to convince Mam and Dad to let me go to this disco when they’d already said that I could only go out (maybe) during the holidays? What if I never got to meet this boy? I could hardly approach him in the cemetery. It had to be a slow set. Somewhere dark, crowded, noisy, so that he couldn’t see or hear me too well. My mother was going to swell and give birth. I wouldn’t be the only one anymore. I would have to look after it when they were too old. They were going to die.
Mar ran back and handed me a woodlouse in a jar. ‘Here, you can look after this.’
‘Great, thanks a bunch, Mar,’ I said, putting a foot out to trip her up. At least I had her.
It was around that time that Celia’s book appeared on Mam’s bedside locker. Mam hadn’t said a word about it. Mind you, I’d hardly spoken to her after she told me about the baby. But I was sure she wanted me to find it. I was always snooping around her room, trying on her clothes. Sometimes even Dad’s clothes, I got so bored of my own. It was like when she left a copy of What’s Happening to Me? in my room. She didn’t say anything that time either.
He Is Mine and I Have No Other Page 2