The after-blood seeped from me less and less and, as it waned, I wanted it back. Its smell was potent – meaty and ancient. That blood smell, for me, encapsulated the almost ten months I had carried Malachy. It took seven weeks and four days to dry up. Sometimes it felt like I had never given birth at all but, when I lay in the bath, my hands were drawn to the slack pouch of my stomach and the dark line that stretched up it. When the line and the pink stretch marks began to fade, I felt their loss.
Verity was always nearby; she would look at me for long moments as if wanting to scold me; sometimes she did.
‘You’re a malcontent, Lillis. Like me,’ she said one afternoon, exasperated when I wouldn’t get out of bed. ‘Nothing pleases you. You wanted to come home. Now you’re here but you won’t do anything. Get up. Go out. You can’t spend your life sleeping your brains to train oil.’
I did get up and I did go out. I met up with Robin’s friend Fidelma for drinks. We sat in a city pub in dull silence. While avoiding me himself, Robin had somehow coaxed Fidelma into meeting me and, no more than myself, she clearly didn’t want to be there. I asked how her café was doing and she told me it was going fine, but she didn’t ask about Scotland or Struan or my future plans. I couldn’t have talked about any of it anyway. I got drunk, sliding pints of lager into my throat like milk. The bar and its occupants became swimmy and I felt cantankerous and wrong.
‘Why did you agree to meet, Fidelma?’ I asked.
‘Robin thinks we both need cheering up.’
I snorted. ‘Robin knows fuck all about what I want. Why do you need cheering up?’
Fidelma agitated her hair with both hands and looked at the floor. ‘I’ve been really low, totally all over the place.’ She leaned forward and glanced around. ‘I had an abortion a few weeks ago,’ she whispered.
I couldn’t even open my mouth to speak after she said it. I stood up from the table and left the pub, leaving Fidelma calling after me.
*
Malachy and Dónal are like twin ghosts; they swing together through my head and when one of them taps the wire of memory, it reverberates, then pulls taut and threatens to snap. I wake from dreams and think that I am still immersed in the dream-world, where everyone is together and growing older and all is well. The divide between my dream-life and my day is so ill-drawn that, one of these mornings, I am afraid I am going to blurt everything inside me to Cormac when I wake.
He has been urging me to join a mother and baby group, to meet other new mammies, but I am afraid I will be years older than all of them, so I wiggle out of it. I arrange to meet Robin for coffee just to get out of the house. I leave Nessa with Cormac. Though I fret about being away from the baby, I feel light as I take the bus into town, free for a while from her needs. I sit on the top deck of the bus and enjoy the swing up the quays, past the Luas, tinkling its way to Saggart, past the brewery and the barracks, past the bridges that bracelet the Liffey, each one named for a different man; past the green stretch of the river itself, named for a woman. My bus mates are either plugged into music or shouting into mobile phones; the graffiti on the ceiling is the same as it ever was: ‘Macker ’n’ Jean 4eva’; ‘Ballyers are snots’; ‘Jim Murphy is selling his wife Dolores’.
The boys on the bus occupy a seat each. The girls huddle together; they all have the same messy up-styles and heavy make-up along with matching tribal tattoos on their necks. I put my hand to my own nape, where the quaver sits, forever hidden under my hair. It is nice, I think, to sit on the bus, looking around, my mind emptying.
Town is quiet, most people are tucked up in their offices or busy after the school run. The quays reek of fried onions and the smell makes me momentarily hungry. I cross the Ha’penny Bridge and trot up to meet Robin outside a pub on Drury Street; he is already drinking coffee, sitting in the cordoned-off area on the footpath. He orders tea for me and asks how I am.
‘I’m grand. Weary. But happy to be out and about.’
‘You’re bored out of your tree – I can tell.’ He sucks on his cigarette, smirking. ‘I’ll never, ever understand why you married Cormac Spain. You’re like peaches and fake cream. Polar fucking opposites.’
‘I love him. He’s a good man,’ I say quietly.
‘Don’t make me puke. Since when have you liked good men? Jesus, you need a smack.’ He swipes at the air with his cigarette and grins.
‘Well, what I certainly didn’t need was another quixotic arsehole like Struan Torrance.’
Struan’s is not a name that is mentioned between Robin and me; he may as well never have existed as far as discussing him is concerned. What happened cleaved a gorge through us; we have never resumed the closeness we once had. Robin being Robin – and a true son of Verity – acted as if nothing had occurred. But it wasn’t like that for me, it couldn’t be. And so I pulled back from Robin and created a distance between us that he has not dared to breach. Or maybe by his actions he established the distance. Whatever the truth of it, we remain wary of each other. But, when we meet, we carry on in our own way, ignoring the past, and not looking down into the chasm. It is a case of whatever you say, say nothing, which has always been the Yourell solution to Yourell problems. He ignores Struan’s name now, just as I knew he would. It doesn’t suit Robin to talk about the past.
‘Your downfall, Lillis, is you never know how to say no.’
‘That’s not true. Maybe when I was younger, but not now.’
Robin tosses his head, dismissing what I have said – a Verity move. He blows smoke at me which he knows I hate. ‘So, what’s your sex life like then, since baby? Is Cormac an animal?’
‘Shut up. As if I’d tell you.’ I bat the smoke away with one hand.
‘I see; it’s crap.’
I put down my cup and look at Robin. ‘Why do gay men constantly bang on about sex? What’s that all about?’ He laughs. ‘No seriously, tell me, I want to know. I mean, you all have jobs and homes, you go to films, to the pub; there’s gay marriage to think about, politics, the recession, et cetera et cetera. Why is sex the only topic of conversation allowed?’
‘Probably because we don’t get any.’ He takes my fingers in his. ‘And just so you know, I don’t give a fuck about marriage. It’s not even vaguely relevant to me.’ He flicks his ash onto the ground. ‘I hate all that smug stuff that married people carry on with, like they’re the only people on the planet. It’s a look on their faces. You have it, even though you’re miserable.’
‘Oh, God, Robin, give it a rest. What is wrong with you today?’
‘Nothing.’
This is how Robin operates when I am down: attack, attack, attack. He cannot stand when I am not lively, or going along with him in his banter. Like my father, he does not tolerate tears and bad humour. Anthony would leave the room if either Verity or myself cried when he lived with us. Or he would sit in grumpy silence until we calmed down.
We drink our drinks and sit without speaking. The forced gaiety of a group of girls near us bothers me. They are holding cigarettes between manicured fingers and they screech over each other, rather than talk; their eyes are insincere and troubled, and I find I cannot stop staring at them. One of them glances at me, then looks away. The whole group goes quiet and then they all laugh. They are clearly laughing at me.
‘Fucking cows,’ I say.
‘Lillis, they’re only kids.’
‘Well, I can’t be dealing with them. With anyone.’ I drain my teacup and rise. ‘Come on, let’s go for a window-shop on Grafton Street.’
Robin sighs and finishes his coffee. He takes my arm and shuffles along beside me down Castle Market. ‘Cheer up, Charlie,’ he says, something Verity used to sing to us when we were little.
‘I’m grand,’ I say, and even I can hear the strain in my voice.
I get the bus back home; it stops on Wood Quay and the driver calls out t
he bus number. I look at the bus stop to see why he has done that and there is a blind woman standing there. She nods, smiles and rolls her eyes; it gives her a curiously calm look and, for a moment, I envy her. The doors sigh shut and we drive on.
I trail my hand along the bushes that are as snug as huts in front of every garden on Beechlawn Avenue. I put my key in the lock and, when the door opens, the quietness of the house assails me. I wander through the rooms and find them all empty. A small fur of panic coats the inside of my mouth but I tamp it down. Nessa is OK; she is with Cormac. Nothing can go wrong; he is not going to let her out of his sight.
I lie on the sofa and doze; I sleep for a while and wake suddenly with a clear memory of Margaret, staring at me across the tiny table where I ate my meals in my Glasgow bedsit, an angry set to her face. Margaret’s eyebrows had a high arch which made her look constantly quizzical. It suited her because she was an inquisitive woman; not nosey, exactly, because that would imply a certain snoopiness. No, Margaret was just terribly interested in other people’s lives and she shared the minutiae of her own in forensic detail. I knew everything about her family and far too much about her and Gordon’s sex life, because she would muse aloud about it for hours at a time.
Margaret was disappointed with me because I was giving the baby up for adoption; it gnawed at her maternal self and she struggled not to mention it all the time. She also could not approve of the fact that I refused to tell Struan that I was pregnant but, at the same time, she seemed to understand that my hurt was huge and raw.
‘In time,’ she said, more than once, meaning that she was sure I would contact Struan eventually and tell him. But I never did. Months turned to years somehow and Struan slipped from the image I nurtured of the baby and me. He didn’t seem part of it, that bubble of time where I carried and delivered our son. I thought – think – of Malachy daily but Struan rarely.
Margaret was particularly annoyed with me that day in my bedsit in Glasgow because she had asked if Struan could write to me and I said I did not want to hear from him. Ever. She didn’t answer my refusal but she stared at me across my table as if I was the worst kind of brat she had ever encountered. In fairness, I probably was.
Chapter Six
A black sheep and her fat-haunched lamb sit on a rise ahead of me, serene as the Madonna and child. Fog skirls across the river and the daffodils on the bank lie almost flat from the dew. Dónal and I used to call that daffodil rain – the tiny drops that cling to the petals, bright as glass beads. I pluck one of the flowers and push my nose deep into its yellow bell, then toss it away. I examine my hands. I like that they are getting older – pallid and mottled and bony. They are a replica of Verity’s hands; younger looking, but practically identical in shape and finger length and colour. I never knew that I wanted any part of me to be like any part of her, but I find I am pleased to see Verity’s hands at the end of my arms.
My car idles by the gate, the exhaust jetting a steady stream. I walk to the middle of the field and throw my hands skyward, to see if I can feel the mist on my palms. I don’t remember driving here.
Today is Malachy’s birthday. My April boy. He is twenty, the same age Dónal was when he died. Twenty. It is a lifetime. A long time. Dónal was an April baby. My two April boys.
Yesterday there was another earthquake in Japan; the news showed elderly people, keening and hunched over, their faces a wreck of confusion and fear. I watched the footage for hours. Yesterday, too, I saw a dead crow hung above the garage of my neighbour’s house, its torso a meaty patch. I could not figure out why it was there and I stood staring at it until Nessa woke in the pram. I rocked her back to sleep and continued to look at the bird.
I had seen a crow mobbing an eagle over the hills when out walking with Margaret in Kinlochbrack one day. She said the crow was protecting its nest, but I felt sorry for the eagle. I have always hated crows. The dead bird and the earthquake made me feel dark. Both of them are wrong things – things that should not happen, should not be seen or heard about.
Last night I had a déjà vu where Cormac took the place of Dónal in a long-ago conversation; it was like Dónal was in the room with me and I smiled at that thought.
‘Why are you smiling?’ Cormac said.
I was about to tell him but I swallowed it. I dread him knowing everything about me and I have a secondary dread that if he did know all, he wouldn’t like me.
Cormac is madly content since Nessa was born; he occupies a space outside of me – the two of them do. I see them as a distant little unit and I look at them as if from a height. Even through his worry about me and my odd moods, I sense Cormac’s deep satisfaction at being a father. Nothing I do or don’t do dulls his pleasure at finding himself a daddy. And why should it? I am happy for him, jealous of him, proud of his pride in our daughter. She is perfect beyond reason, a baby like no other baby. Every grunt, every bodily evacuation – from her mouth, from her bum – is up for discussion. Cormac can talk about Nessa forever and ever, amen, and probably will. And I listen. But I am the pretend mother, not perfectly attuned in the way I should be if I could do this right. If only I could get it right.
Malachy is twenty. He arrived two weeks late; he was so well settled in my belly that it seemed he never wanted to come out. I wonder if he is unpunctual still. I wonder if he has my face, Struan’s skin; if his hair is dark or fair. I wonder if he thinks of me every day, the way I think of him. Surely I will be on his mind today of all days.
The trilling of birds makes me look around; the hedgerow skirting this field is made of whitethorn bushes that look like they have been dipped in flour. I look down at the grass. My toes are looped around a dandelion stem; the field is dotted with their golden crowns.
I think of Margaret who was a friend to me; Margaret the good mother; Margaret who wanted to know everything about my life. She was always analysing the reasons why people are the way they are; why they do the things they do. I learnt from her about the two sides we all possess: the public and the private, the show and the self. I let Margaret go too. I let everyone go in the end.
I know I cannot regain what is lost. Once I handed Malachy to the young Edinburgh midwife, I knew I would never get him back as he was at that moment. How could I? Even if I had returned to him after a week, to reclaim him for my own, he would have been different; a different baby to the baby I had left behind.
‘My feet are freezing,’ I say, and walk back to the gate and climb it. I stop to look at white lichen like splatters of liquid bird shit on the stone wall; I stand there examining the stones for ages. I get into my car and drive; the sun streaks through the window and warms my hair. I realise that I am three towns away from my hometown; I must have left the house at dawn.
I pass a church and the door is open. I check the rear-view and do a speedy reverse. Another car swerves and beeps; the driver is outraged. He bunches his fist at me and I look away. I park the car. This is not my kind of church: it is a square box, full of natural light. A woman walks back and forth across the altar, foostering with flowers and candles; she half-genuflects each time she walks past the tabernacle, a speedy nod to holiness, to what is right. I look for the Virgin statue and find her in an alcove. She is no more than a curved oblong of granite; her halo is part of her headdress and her feet stand on a stone moon. I am disappointed. What comfort can be had from this aloof lump of rock? How can I appeal to a featureless face? I pick up a handful of votives and throw them at the statue.
‘You’re a fake,’ I shout, grabbing more candles from the stand and tossing them at the Virgin’s head.
‘Hey! Hey, you. Get out. You can’t do that. Get out of here!’ The woman from the altar barrels down the aisle towards me.
‘Just fuck off,’ I say, throwing the rest of the votives at her feet.
‘I’m warning you. Out of here this instant, you pup.’
I sing along to the
radio all the way home in the car; the DJ is playing songs I know – eighties songs – and I whack the steering wheel in time and laugh when I get the words right. When I turn into Beechlawn Avenue, Cormac is standing in the doorway of our house, jiggling Nessa in his arms.
‘Where were you?’ he says.
‘Nowhere.’
‘Are you all right? I was worried, Lillis. And Nessa is hungry.’
I haul the baby from his arms. ‘Learn to cope,’ I shout. ‘I won’t always be here, you know.’
I plonk myself onto the sofa and let the baby feed. She guzzles and I feel my breast deflate as she nurses; the other breast, swollen and hard, leaks milk onto my nightie.
‘You went out in your night things again,’ Cormac says.
I look down at myself. My nightdress is stained; my feet are dirty and red with cold. ‘I must have.’ I pluck at the skirt of the nightie. ‘It’s like something you’d see in an asylum, isn’t it?’
‘Lillis, you’re not coping. You need to go and talk to someone. Please?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Do, won’t you? Ring the GP or something. Look, I’m sorry, but I have to go to work now. I’m two hours late already.’ He bends down and kisses my cheek. He kisses Nessa. ‘A package arrived to Verity’s for you. She brought it over. It’s there.’
I look at the package sitting on the dresser, a brown papered, boxy thing. So, they have been at it again; gathering together to discuss me. Shifty little meetings when I am out of the house. I lift Nessa to the other breast and close my eyes. I hear the front door shut and the whirr of Cormac’s bike as he sets off.
My brain is like a colander; only one thing fits in it at a time and I have to strain that away before something else can take its place. But, no, that’s not really it at all. My head is too full of things – Malachy, Nessa, motherhood, time, Cormac, housework, my real work and getting back to it – but I am not able to concentrate on any one thing. So it all soups together until I am breathless with confusion; mired in some muddy place that makes no sense to me. My mind cannot seem to get a grip on anything relevant and the minutes, hours, even the days steal past so that I don’t notice them going. I am topsy-turvy.
The Closet of Savage Mementos Page 16