Dinner Party

by Sarah Gilmartin

  ‘I don’t know what I’ve done.’ Her mother sat weightlessly into her chair. ‘For a child of mine to wag his tongue at me this way. I don’t know why—’

  ‘You know!’ Ray dropped his cutlery. ‘You always know exactly what you’re doing. With your subtle table decorating and your not-so-subtle accusations. She said—’ He turned to Kate, ‘when you were gone upstairs, she said—’

  ‘There’s no one called she in this house,’ Peter frowned.

  Ray pushed his plate away from him and even Peter downed tools. Nobody was eating their dinner.

  ‘She,’ said Ray. He was furious now, sparks of spit coming from his mouth. ‘She said that I deserved to be on my own.’ He shifted forward, pressing his hands on the table. There was an alcoholic heat off him, from his breath or his pores, a staleness that made her think these few cans were merely a continuation of some heavier, earlier session. She didn’t know how she’d missed it on the way down.

  ‘I did not say that,’ her mother said.

  ‘You did!’

  ‘I said, that you—’

  ‘You used those exact words.’ Ray banged his hand on the table. ‘You said I deserved it. When, well you know how much I miss—’ His voice went high and crackly.

  ‘What I said, Raymond, is that you only have yourself to blame. There’s a difference.’ Her mother sat straight in her chair and sniffed the air. She bunched her shoulders in such a way that two coral-coloured horns gathered on the cardigan.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Peter.

  Kate glared at him. It was not OK that her mother was like this, that she couldn’t bear to be near a problem without deciding on a culprit. At Cranavon, bad things did not happen by chance.

  ‘We’ll leave it there,’ Peter said. ‘Can we go back to eating our dinner?’

  Kate watched Ray’s hands grip the table, his fingertips a waxy white. She was afraid to turn towards him, afraid it might upset him further.

  ‘Mammy, there’s not a huge difference between those two things,’ she said. ‘To be honest.’ An image of Elaine flashed in her mind, not Elaine the teenager, but the older, desperate face she’d seen trapped in the television the night of the brownie. ‘You’re basically saying that Ray deserved it. And he didn’t deserve it, Mammy. They’re just going through some stuff. And they’re sorting it out. Like adults.’

  ‘Like adults?’ her mother said. ‘Is that it, Kate? Aren’t you very grown-up all of a sudden?’

  She could sense Peter shaking his head.

  Beside her, Ray gave a grunt.

  ‘You two have always been thick as thieves,’ her mother said. ‘You’ve always been against me.’

  Kate knew she could leave right this instant if she wanted to—she had her own keys of her own car in her own bag—and she had her own flat back in Dublin as well, but she was here now, one foot already in the bog. She could limp away as usual or wade on in.

  ‘For or against,’ said Ray to himself. ‘Some family.’

  ‘Excuse me, Raymond?’ Her mother came forward but the fight was gone from Ray. He sagged in the chair and drank his can.

  ‘Look, Mammy,’ said Kate, attempting Peter’s calm manner. ‘All I’m saying is that nobody deserves to have their family broken up.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that?’ her mother cried. ‘There’s only one thing breaks up a family.’ She looked at each of them in turn, her grey eyes shining. ‘Death.’

  Kate felt a sliver of sympathy. She hadn’t thought about it that way.

  ‘Death,’ her mother said, again. ‘My father. My husband. My child. Don’t talk to me about broken families.’

  The sympathy disintegrated, which was unfair, really, as unless her mother had drawn her attention to it, she wouldn’t have seen it at all—but the woman did not know when to stop. This was the problem. Once she had your ear, she needed to devour every last part of you.

  ‘Raymond is disgracing himself,’ said her mother. ‘Instead of trying to fix his family, he’s taken to the bottle.’

  Again, Kate could see some shard of truth in what she was saying, but it was all wrong, the way it came out, and it was never just about the person at hand.

  ‘Would you leave him be?’ Kate said. ‘He’s having a few drinks. He’s just trying to—’ She searched around for what she wanted to say, could not find it.

  ‘To escape,’ said Peter.

  He hadn’t said anything for a while, and they all cast their eyes towards him, waiting for more. A kidney bean had fallen onto his shirt, was resting on the lip of the pocket. Against the fine pink material, it almost looked like a logo. He stared back at them with deep, sad eyes.

  ‘To escape from what?’ her mother said.

  Ray was so far back in his chair he seemed to have deflated. ‘From life, Mammy,’ he said wearily.

  Her mother humphed. She finished her water and gave a triumphant, knowing smile. At the sight of her thinning lips, Kate suddenly found what she’d been trying to say.

  ‘It’s not from life, Ray.’ She turned to her brother, tried to grasp his fingers which refused to come out of their fist. ‘You’re escaping from this house, from whatever’s inside you, that’s inside me, that’s inside all of us. Even you, Peter.’

  She expected Peter to stop her, but his arms were folded and he seemed, from the head of the table, to look down at them from afar, like a judge without a gavel, or a judge who had retired and given back his gavel after seeing too many innocents go down.

  Her mother pushed her chair from the table and went to stand.

  ‘You’re escaping from her,’ Kate said, without even meaning to. But once it was out it had a leaden truth. ‘You’re escaping, by whatever means necessary, from the way we learned to live.’

  Her mother stayed in the chair, trembling now, the coral horns moving too.

  ‘All I ever did,’ her mother started. ‘I did for this fam—’

  Across the table, Kate watched the dry corners of her mother’s mouth. It was moving, moving, and she was aware in a general sense of the sounds coming out of it, could probably, if she had to, repeat the lines verbatim, except that right now they didn’t seem to land at all. It was as if a magnificent glass sheet had been lowered from the heavens onto the table, splitting her from her mother. Hundreds of thousands of thoughts were rushing through her brain and, as usual, she couldn’t decide which of them mattered. She could never seem to pin down in words the angry, hurt atmosphere they had lived with, that was unable to be measured in increments of time, that blended and weaved with periods of happiness, and days and months and years of service that were all bound up in this one formidable woman at the centre of everything. All Kate had ever wanted, she suddenly realized, was to live in a house where a mother might say: I’m struggling, today was a hard day. Instead she lived at Cranavon, whose singular motto was always and would ever be: I’m suffering, look at what’s been done to me.

  ‘And you—’ Her mother was pointing a bony finger across the table at her.

  Kate couldn’t help smiling. She imagined it going through the glass, could see the tip, the pearly pink varnish on the nail, poking out the other side, while the rest of her mother’s hand was trapped behind the pane. She knew then that she didn’t need to tell her mother what was in her head. She’d said enough.

  ‘We all know what kind of a life you,’ her mother went on.

  Blah, blah, blah, thought Kate, who could feel a bubble of a laugh somewhere inside her. She looked at Ray, his face the colour of ash. She smiled at him, wanting him to feel this ease she now felt, wishing she could squeeze it out of her in drops and give it like a tincture to both her brothers, and to her mother too, if there was any left over.

  ‘An affair with a married man!’ Her mother stood and threw her napkin at Kate. It didn’t reach its target, which was her face, landing instead in the middle of her chilli.

  The glass pane shattered. It disintegrated in front of Kate’s eyes, in some deft, feverish magic trick. In
full focus, her mother was a sight, her face a mottled pink, the white-blonde eyebrows disappearing in the wrinkled fury of her forehead. Her bottom teeth jutted out. She grasped the cardigan, flung it on the ground.

  ‘You,’ she said to Kate, slapping the air. ‘You’re the real disgrace of this family. The true homewrecker.’

  As she went on with her name-calling and insults, Kate tried to hold her gaze. A hot, drumming sound made it hard to follow the sentences. She looked away, down into the room, to the lamplit couches, and beyond them into the darkness where the bureau was just a bulky shape by the window, the photos impossible to make out.

  ‘A married man with children,’ her mother said now. ‘Children! Your father would be ashamed of you.’

  Kate felt the tears warm on her face.

  Ray moved his chair closer. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘It’s over a long time. Leave Kate alone.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ her mother said. ‘Poor Kate. Little Katie. The men are always on your side. So nicey, nicey to the men. Wouldn’t say boo to a man.’

  Kate knew what was coming next.

  ‘Just like your grandmother!’ Her mother guffawed. ‘Meek and mild Kate. Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, I know—I know, we all know what you are. And don’t you forget it.’

  Kate pictured her father looking down on them, shaking his head at his daughter; the slut, the homewrecker, the hussy, and all the other names that were still flying from her mother’s mouth. And her mother was right. Daddy would be ashamed of her, and he would be angry—his big hands curling and uncurling, the pulsing vein on his neck—that she had tried to break up that most important and indestructible of units: a family. But unlike her mother, Daddy would blame himself, that he hadn’t taught her the right way to live, that he’d let her loose into the world without morals or sense. And he would be sad, too, that his daughter, his little girl, his favourite (it was OK to say it now, years later and no one around to care), that his Kate had chosen such a lonely path in life that a few dates a month with a man she barely knew was enough to constitute love.

  ‘Are you done?’ Kate heard a voice say. She moved away from Ray, wincing at a loud bang. But it was not some random object flying through the air and smashing off the wall behind her. Peter had smacked his hand on the varnished wood, his dinner plate still clattering in its wake. He stood, all six foot four of him, and loomed over the table. The triangles at his hairline were shiny with sweat.

  Her mother turned to face Peter, placing her hands on her hips.

  ‘It’s you who’s disgraced yourself tonight, Mammy.’ Peter’s voice was slow, thick-tongued.

  ‘I have not,’ her mother said.

  ‘You’ve disgraced yourself. And this house. And the memory of Elaine.’

  ‘You’re the one who told me, Peter,’ her mother said. ‘You’re the one who spilled the beans.’

  Kate tried to catch her breath. Peter was wringing his hands. ‘I only told her so she might understand, Katie,’ he said. ‘So she would be kinder to—’

  ‘What’s kinder got to do with anything?’ her mother shouted. ‘A married man. With children.’

  Ray said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Peter.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘You thought you’d wade in as usual.’

  ‘You’re the one who told me!’ Peter said.

  Kate looked at Ray, whose squirmy little face told her it was true. Of course it was. How else would they know?

  ‘But Mammy didn’t understand,’ said Peter sadly. ‘She took up the wrong meaning.’

  ‘Oh, go away, Peter,’ said her mother. ‘I’m sick of the sight of you.’ She put a hand behind her and felt for the chair. How could she do it, Kate wondered, how could she change from a ferocious, ageless creature into a pitiable old woman with one simple gesture of her hand? All of a sudden, Kate wanted to go over and help her.

  ‘Pardon me?’ said Peter.

  ‘Do you think I love looking at your big mug every day for the last forty-two years?’ Her mother took a seat.

  It was strange to hear the number out loud like that—four long decades and already into the fifth. Kate waited for Peter to sit. Her eyes willed him into the chair, to drop onto the crushed velvet cushion and bring stability to the house once more. Across the way, her mother had started to scour the table, picking up anything within range—her fork, a glass, the silver salt cellar.

  ‘Is that right?’ Peter said.

  Her mother didn’t reply. The anger had left her, like a wave rolled to shore, reduced to a crusty foam. Kate saw now, in the relative peace of her movements, how much her mother needed her rage. And it was not just her mother. Kate had a memory of herself and Elaine as children, maybe seven or eight, locked in the upstairs bathroom, bruised and sore from the tea towel, or the wooden spoon, or whatever ordinary household item had been used in that particular instance. Very clearly she could see them both: Elaine roaring her hurt into the world, and herself silent in the corner, watching the door. The people who shouted out in life survived. Her sister should have survived. But for the first time in her life, Kate realized it wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. She looked at the bright ceiling light until her eyes started to water. As a hand covered her own, she shivered and came back to the room. The hand was light and dry, the nail polish shimmering as the fingers withdrew. She looked at her mother and something passed between them.

  ‘Is that right?’ Peter repeated.

  ‘It’s OK, Peter,’ said Kate. ‘Let it go.’

  ‘I will not let it go,’ said Peter. ‘This day has been coming for a very long time.’ He stepped back from the table. ‘Mammy—I’m moving out of Cranavon. I’m moving in with Serena.’

  ‘Who?’ said Ray.

  ‘Who?’ said Kate.

  ‘His Spanish teacher,’ her mother said with an eye roll.

  ‘You know?’ said Peter.

  ‘Of course I know. You big fool. Who does the same course three times? No child of mine, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You know?’ Peter was even more incredulous this time. He put a hand through his fringe.

  ‘I always know,’ her mother said.

  In an evening of truths, this was no exception. Kate felt she owed her mother the acknowledgement.

  ‘You do, Mammy,’ she said. ‘Actually, you always do.’

  Her mother gave a stiff nod and tucked her hair behind her ears. When she looked up, their eyes locked and for a moment Kate thought she might smile. It felt as if her mother was noticing her for the very first time, that Kate alone was enough to fill the space.

  ‘Serena who?’ said Ray, ruining the moment. ‘There’s no Serenas in Tullow.’

  ‘She’s from Kilkenny,’ Peter said.

  ‘Ooh,’ said Ray.

  Peter glared at him, but you could see it was bravado. He kept glancing at their mother.

  ‘You can move out whenever you want, Peter,’ she said, with a majestic wave. ‘Or you can move Serena Donnelly in here if you’d prefer. You know the farm belongs to you.’

  Kate agreed instantly, Ray murmured his assent a moment later.

  Peter started to laugh. ‘Are you serious, Mammy?’ He rocked on his heels. ‘Are you fucken serious?’

  Ray was next to go, then Kate and even their mother—all of them laughing, a maniacal, homely laugh that took the evening into its fold.

  ‘Is that the first time you’ve ever cursed, Peter?’ said Ray eventually.

  Peter held out a hand, doubled over, gripped his left side. ‘Stop,’ he gasped. ‘Stop it.’ He settled into the chair once more and raised his glass. ‘To our sister Elaine,’ he said. ‘For looking down on this house tonight and bringing it more happiness than I ever thought possible.’

  ‘Oh, Peter,’ her mother said, with a sob. ‘You’ve got me going again.’

  And it was not just Mammy this time. Kate nodded through her tears, smiling in solidarity at the blurry version of her mother across the way.

&nb
sp; Ray woke up when they were on the canal. ‘What time is it?’ he said.

  ‘Twenty to eleven,’ said Kate. ‘You’ll be in bed before you know it. Only a few more bridges to Portobello.’ She wondered what his bedroom looked like. She had offered to help him move but he’d said he was only bringing a bag.

  Ray yawned and put his hands on the dashboard, stretching. ‘Do you think?’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes were tired and she blinked at the road. The Luas glided past them in its easy, muted way.

  ‘Ah, nothing.’ He tapped on his phone, laughing occasionally. She resisted conversation, knowing how prickly he could be when he had to multitask. She got off the canal at the bridge and pulled in by a bus shelter on Richmond Street.

  ‘You know,’ said Ray, pointing to a takeaway with a neon sign, ‘I’d murder a kebab.’ He undid the seat belt. ‘That chilli feels like it was hours ago.’

  ‘Well, it was,’ she said.

  ‘And the coffee cake was dry as dust.’

  ‘Mammy’s trusted recipe never lets her down,’ said Kate.

  They laughed.

  ‘Seriously,’ said Kate. ‘It was like pencil shavings on the outside.’

  ‘Do you fancy?’ Ray gave her a bemused look. ‘Ah, you’ve work in the morning. We both do. Well, I hope I do.’ He stared out the windscreen at the road, still greasy from the rain.

  She reached over and patted his hand. ‘You’ll get back on track,’ she said, trying to quell her eagerness to bolt, to kick her poor brother out of the car and leave him to delight alone upon the many takeaways that all seemed to be empty but open, with glistening hunks of meat rotating in the windows.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘If I can survive a night like that at home, I can survive anything. I was texting Liz to tell her. She—’ He looked at the keys in the ignition. ‘I better let you go.’

  ‘No, go on,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

  He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Next time. Let’s catch up soon. OK? Thanks for the lift.’ He opened the door and got out. A smoky night chill came into the car.

  ‘Ray!’ she said.