Bend for Home, The

  Today is Thursday, I leave Sunday when Una returns from the States, so we have only a few more days together. The routine we’ve established will be broken. And of course I’ll be glad to shed the responsibility of the twenty-four-hour day, and yet in another way, I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to her, not maybe emotionally, but in some intimate way I can’t articulate.

  There have been moments I thought I was going off my head, but then the routine would re-establish itself, Maisie would cheerfully reappear on her walking-aid and send us off down some vitriolic non sequitur, Eileen would come in. I think of Mother’s death, a death to which she constantly refers, and yet I find it hard to imagine her giving up the body which is refusing her peace. She is strong physically and when she is quiet like now, she is endearing, innocent, a porcelain doll again. She was always impatient whether cleaning or polishing, and this impatience now controls her every need. Housework haunts her. The things she would have done slip through her mind with a guilty sense of déjà vu. The ghost of her earlier self flies ahead of her through the rooms, dusting and clucking, and she totters along in her own wake. Even an orange, upon which she once used gorge, is a mystery. She hurries towards work to be done only to find that the actual act eludes her. She rushes headlong from bed to table, table to armchair, armchair to toilet, toilet to bed, searching for something, but wherever she ends up that something is missing.

  Only prayer and sleep halts this rush to duty. These two poles are her only peaceful states, except perhaps for sitting in a car. Going someplace is a powerful peacemaker, but to arrive is to grow impatient again. I know this feeling in myself. Her genes have put in mine the same need to be away. Like her I speed between moments of rest, impatient to arrive and then impatient to be gone again.

  At various times, we have shared intimacy but not for long, we must be always bustling ahead, and then with each departure, we’re again embroiled in loss. And this sense of loss makes for telepathy. It’s like years ago, the mother was dreaming of me in the Breifne and she suddenly darted awake when she saw something hit my head. At that same moment I was being treated in a London hospital for a wound to the skull. And when we next met she said I saw you bleeding, bleeding, she repeated as if she could find the actual word for blood like red fluid gushing onto her tongue, and I woke, she said, and the room was cold.

  I felt, she said, the blow.

  But telepathy does not bring us any closer. It is the result of the distances between us. Even if we knew the future, we could do nothing about it. It would happen as planned. Our natures are set. The loss is predetermined.

  In the same manner as I sit here writing while my mother prays, I used to study in my father’s sickroom over the three years he lay dying. I’d have my tea in the room with him, he’d eat off his tray and I’d eat off mine, then I’d go off for a game of handball, return and study beside him till nine. I used love those times with him. The silence I found then, I do now with Mother. When he’d fight for his breath, he’d dab a handkerchief to his purple nose. I’d wait for the outburst to subside and we’d go on as before, in the same way as I wait for my mother’s restlessness to pass.

  When we are alone together for hours in the morning Winnie and I rarely speak. She looks over her shoulder at me sometimes as if startled at finding a stranger in the room. Yoh! she says. She tries to reassemble my features into somebody familiar. I smile, she touches an earring. I roll a cigarette, she concentrates on this.

  Leaves? she asks.

  Tobacco, I answer.

  God, she says, and goes back to her rosary. Her breathing eases. This little exchange has reassured us both. Then within seconds her mood changes and she tries to get out of the chair.

  Where are you going?

  To the room.

  No.

  She clasps her hands on her lap. Her chin stirs. She looks downcast. She studies the shining aluminium dessert dish that contains her beads, the prayer to Padre Pio and an Address to the Virgin. The earring shakes. She bows her newly dressed head and ponders her fingernails. I hear a noise off. Soon we head on a tour of the house and encounter Maisie illicitly searching drawers in the kitchen.

  What are you looking for, Maisie?

  Apples, she says, green apples. Will you give me one?

  They only give you heartburn, I say.

  Never mind that. Everything gives me heartburn – can I just have one?

  All right.

  Oh you could supervise the devil, snaps my mother and she pulls sharply at my arm.

  We go to the front door, visit the toilet and head to the bedroom.

  She lifts the pillow to see if the second rosary is beneath it. I put on her hairnet and she dabs her skull. I turn her onto her side.

  Are you writing another book?

  I’m trying.

  You’re spending a lot of time with the pen in your hand, she says with extraordinary lucidity and I realize that while I’ve been watching her, she’s been watching me.

  Will you call me in the morning?

  I’ll call you for tea.

  God bless you, she murmurs, content at last. I turn her again so that the wounded part of the head is not touching the pillow. I ease the door to. Go back to my armchair. Putting together the banal events of these days seems pointless, yet it gives me relief. It passes the time. It is a record of days I would otherwise not recall.

  *

  Soon I’ll have to wake her. The earrings, the glasses, will be replaced with shaking hands. Whatever dream she’s in will accompany her for hours. Because her sleep is so deep she cannot shake off who she encounters there.

  There will be things to be done that cannot be done. Stray figures out of the past will be at the door. The house will be totally new, not like the house she encountered in sleep, or the bend for home she was on before she was rudely awakened. And when she’ll encounter Maisie across from her in the dining room some sort of mania and distress will make her flinch. She’ll eat with relish the first few spoonfuls then push the plate away. I’ll push it back. She’ll stuff her mouth one more time. Then push the plate away. I’ll put it back.

  She’ll drink the tea with great gusto. And when the mug is finished she’ll shake it as as she used to do in the good old days when there were real tea leaves in it. And before she’s quite finished she’s struggling to get out of the chair.

  Away! Away to where?

  *

  At four I enter her room. It’s stifling. The bottom false teeth have come loose in her mouth. The edge of the plate is bared like a fang. The set pushes against her lower lip and swells out the cheek she’s lying on. The loose teeth give her a demented look. The side of the face has fallen in. It’s as if she’s had a severe stroke.

  The minute I touch her she opens her eyes.

  Dermot, she says and smiles.

  She struggles to say something else but the sentence will not allow itself to be articulated. She babbles incoherently for a few seconds.

  Time to get up, I say.

  No-ono, she mutters and begins to weep.

  Out with the legs.

  I can’t.

  Yes you can.

  I reach an arm under her back, put her chin on my shoulder and lift her. She falls back. I hold her. She grabs me. I get an arm under her knees.

  I want – I want, she stammers. I put on her shoes. I put on her earrings. She puts on her glasses. She touches her hair. With her tottering badly behind me, I lead the way through the house. We are walking through a dream of unremembered objects. She follows me, her body hanging to the left and her knees quaking.

  I sit her a while in the armchair.

  Have you got it fixed? she asks me.

  I have.

  Then sign it, she says, holding out her hand.

  I will.

  And hurry up!

  She prays with shaking chin.

  Dermot!

  What?

  Take me up.

  No. You’re only out of bed.


  Dear God.

  She prays, then kicks, glowers over at me. Prays out loud.

  Tch. Tch, she says and touches her scalp. You got me out of bed for what? she demands succinctly.

  For tea.

  There’s silence a while, but she is not settling.

  She returns to her beads. Like a bold child she stamps her feet. Touches an earring. Commands me again.

  Dermot!

  Yes.

  Get me up.

  I do and bring her into tea.

  There you are, says Maisie cheerfully.

  *

  The two ladies face each other over small plates of tinned salmon and mayonnaise, sliced tomatoes and buttered white bread. Mother lifts her mug of tea and drinks thirstily. Maisie picks and contemplates. Mother shakes the saltcellar repeatedly. She eats everything. Afterwards I wash her false teeth while she hangs onto the sink. The minute we’re back in the dining room she starts again.

  Bring me up, she says, to where there is peace.

  No, I say quietly.

  Get me out, she says after a while as she reads Padre Pio’s prayer, to where there’s peace and quiet.

  There’s peace and quiet here, I say.

  She starts her chant that is much like the lament of the Marsh Arab women, and makes to get out of the chair. I put her back in. She kicks at me and claws at my face. I slap the back of her hand.

  My God, she cries, walloping! Walloping! And me eighty years of age. For an hour she stubbornly fights to return to bed. She gets up. She makes fake excursions to the toilet. We go back and forth like sleepwalkers till eventually Maisie enters like a saviour.

  Weep, says Maisie, and you weep alone.

  Soon Eileen arrives. I’m out the door like a shot. It’s my hour in the pub. When I come back the mother greets me like a long-lost stranger.

  Did you enjoy yourself?

  I did, I say.

  *

  I pour Eileen and Maisie a glass of brandy.

  When you were out, says Eileen, she asked me to phone Una. So I said Una was in America. Phone, said your mother, for the gig of the thing, and she started laughing. I couldn’t believe it – for the gig of the thing, she said.

  I start the crossword. The mother relaxes. The ladies chat.

  How do you spell earring? I ask.

  Earring? says Maisie speculatively.

  Is there two r’s in it?

  I don’t know, replies Maisie. We’re regular dunces. She considers Eileen. Princess Anne got remarried. And I don’t blame her.

  Did you not like Captain Mark Phillips? asks Eileen.

  A regular tramp.

  God, but you’re severe, Maisie.

  Captain Mark Phillips, God bless us.

  I cough.

  You have a frog in your throat, says Maisie.

  I have. A cold one.

  The cursed fags, says Maisie. You should give them up. As Monty Montgomery said to Mary Kate–you’ll make a fucking job of yourself yet.

  She turns to my mother. Winnie!

  What?

  What age would Mary Kate Dowd be now?

  Forty, says my mother.

  That was then. I mean now. Do you hear me?

  I hear you.

  See that – she can hear you when she wants to, remarked Maisie. Winnie.

  What?

  The travellers will be back Sunday.

  What travellers?

  Una and Joe.

  Una, Mother says, testing the word.

  Yes, they’re coming back from their stint abroad.

  Eileen takes Mother to the toilet. When she returns Mother asks me: Were you on holidays?

  I never budged.

  It’s Una is on holidays, confirms Maisie. Your son is here with us pair of dolls.

  Una, says Mother ruminatively.

  As Shirley Sheriff said, remarks Maisie, we all have to die.

  I know what you mean, I say.

  I know what you mean, answers Maisie with a smirk, but the grass is wet.

  She grins lustily.

  And the train is gone and you with your chicken in your hand, she continues with glee. Then there was the time Andy B. was in the church after his wife died. He was kneeling in the pew next the coffin. And the sacristan came up to say the church was closing. Well you see, child, said Andy, she was always difficult.

  She was always difficult, repeats Maisie, and tears of laughter come to her eyes. Oh Andy B. He was standing at the door of the shop looking out and he saw Fegan go by on a bike. Look at Fegan, Miss Slacke, he said to me, and a pair of balls on him like the weights on a grandfather clock.

  Maisie! says Eileen in mock horror.

  Then there was that cursed fiend out of hell. A Jesuit. I stepped into the confessional and he asked me: How many times? I said, I can’t remember. Well, I have plenty of time, said he, the cursed fucker.

  What did you do that brought him down on you? I asked.

  Nothing. It was only trivial. Now that I’ve become a great sinner I can see that. The cursed fucker. I could wring his neck. Did you ever have that Eileen?

  No.

  Back then we did.

  I give Mother her pills.

  God help her, says Maisie, she’s taking her pills. If you shook her she’d rattle. And when she was young she couldn’t. She’d hold it in her mouth till she soaked the coat off it. And then it would poison her.

  My mother spits the red aspro out.

  See, says Maisie. What did I tell you? Poor Winnie, she says sadly.

  Then Eileen’s husband looks in.

  There’s the binman, says Mother.

  *

  On comes a documentary about wildlife in Africa on the TV. Maisie starts laughing.

  When the elephants passed by the Breifne in a procession with Duffy’s circus, declares Maisie, they appeared to be up to the windows.

  Didn’t you go off with an acrobat?

  I didn’t. Babs did.

  You were too grand.

  Not at all, they were nice people.

  Jazzing, says my mother, just jazzing.

  He gave Babs the eye in the tent, Maisie continues. And if she didn’t give me the elbow. And when we were going home he stepped out from behind one of the caravans and without a by-your-leave took Babs’s arm. Then out came the other acrobat in a lovely suit and says to Babs, Your friend is very nice.

  More jazzing, says the mother.

  She wanted to square me off with him but I wouldn’t go. What next? said Rose Smith, Duffy’s Circus, no less!

  You walked down the town with them, I say.

  I did not.

  You did.

  Were you there by any chance, she asks, with a scolding eye, at the turn of the century?

  No.

  Well I did not, she nods firmly. I let him go to hell. I was afraid Aunt Jane would hear all about the carry-on.

  Look at the giraffe, I say.

  I like the frog. They’re harmless. Betty Ronaghan put a pair of trousers on one once. Lord above! She sniggers, and turns back to the box. There’s the elephant again. And look at the small elephant. He’s making his way, the poor thing.

  I farted.

  Who’s blowing? Maisie asks with happy eyes.

  We watch zebras drinking from a stream.

  And people pay to see them, she says. Isn’t it wonderful.

  I’m going, says Mammy.

  And a whale is so huge. Did you ever see one, Dermot, out there at the sea?

  No, there’s no whales in that part of the world.

  No whales, says Maisie sadly.

  Eileen, says my mother, put out another drink, then she leans over and nips me.

  I will.

  I have a pain in my head, she says, else I’d do it.

  I know that, Winnie, says Eileen.

  My mother claws the air.

  I have a pain in my head! she screams.

  God sent a message down to say you have no pain in your head, I say loudly.

  What? as
ks the mother.

  I said God says you have no pain.

  She watches me strangely.

  Your son has a line to God no less, says Maisie. You put me in mind of the Bible. What does it say? It says death is like the sea. Make room for me, says the sea, and it comes in and out.

  Whispering Rufus, snorts Mother.

  Look at all those birds, nods Maisie. When you come to think of it.

  There’s three thousand barnacle geese fly in over the house in Sligo every day and then in March they go home.

  They know, says Maisie nodding.

  Wow! shouts Mother.

  They know when it’s time to go.

  Wow! Wow!

  Wow! says I clapping a hand to my mouth, we have an apache in the fucking house.

  The mother smiles, then she says: It’s all right for you.

  *

  Eileen brings Mother a cup of tea.

  How many children have you? asks Eileen.

  Three and one overseas, she answers promptly.

  And was Dermot a good boy?

  He was. I’m going.

  And what does Dermot like?

  She studies me a moment. He likes wandering around.

  God bless us, says Maisie.

  Up! mother screams. And stop the interrogation!

  Maisie laughs across at Winnie.

  The queen is having her problems too, she says. Weary is the head that wears the crown. Then she taps her cheek with a finger. Where’s heaven now? she adds.

  Where did that come from? I ask.

  Where’s heaven now? the astronaut said when he stepped out into space, declares Maisie.

  Did he?

  He did. Oh yes, nods Maisie, he did indeed, and reclining on her arm she turns towards the TV to catch the news. Two Catholic workers have been triggered into eternity, states a priest. Dick Spring appears with a formula for peace. Just more Irish blarney, announces John Taylor, Unionist MP.

  *

  At four in the morning I woke to find her wandering the house nude except for her blue blouse. All the lights are on. The carpet beside the commode is wet and her slip that she’d managed to take off is wet also.

  Take it away, she said.

  I redressed her and put her to bed. Just as I was lying down I heard a door open. I slipped out and found Maisie about to set off on her travels. Her painted fingernails came round the jamb.