by Alison Walsh
No, she wouldn’t marry Mark just yet, she thought, because she wouldn’t do it to please him. Pleasing someone else hadn’t served her well. But they would move house, because if she had to spend another day in Mark’s place she’d go completely mad. The little blue house was far too small now, particularly since Josh seemed to require enough high-tech equipment to fill a spacecraft. Mark could make all the jokes he liked about passing food out to her through the cat flap while she lived in the garden. Anyway, they’d be moving into the house while Pi was away so that she could try not to kill his garden and Mark could work on his new restaurant, a proper authentic Vietnamese. No curried chips or garlic mayonnaise in sight. It was funny how his mother used to talk about going back to Vietnam when they were kids as if it were some mythical Tír na nÓg, as if their stay in Kildare was only temporary, a staging post on their way back to where they belonged. And yet, he had gone ‘home’ and had come back to her and to Josh. Maybe that was where home was, Rosie thought, wherever your family was. She knew that because she’d found it too.
As she looked at the fields whizz past as they sped along the road towards Wexford, Rosie hardly dared admit it to herself, how grateful she was for the life she now had, and how, even now, the fear still lurked in the back of her mind that any minute it could all be taken away. She knew it wasn’t logical, that she should just live in the moment, be mindful as the latest jargon would put it, but there was a tiny bit of her that just couldn’t let go. Maybe it was because she’d seen enough of what letting go could do – living in the moment hadn’t exactly served her parents well. She thought of her mother now, in her little cottage, with her miraculous medals and her relics of Padre Pio, who thought that praying a lot was a substitute for living, but Rosie could hardly blame her. She’d suffered enough.
They had a cautious friendship, Frances and herself, and Rosie wondered if they’d ever have anything more; there were too many questions that still had to be answered, too much water under the bridge. And she also knew that she could never see her as her mother. To do that would be to ignore the woman who had given up so much to raise her. And that was sad, but Rosie knew that neither of them could do much about it. And Frances adored Josh, pouring all her maternal feelings into him, forever asking to babysit, insisting that she mind him when Rosie went back to work and to finish her degree, a look on her face that suggested that she’d be devastated if Rosie refused. And of course, Rosie had had the good sense not to, to be grateful for what she was being offered.
She’d probably never get over that feeling deep inside, but she’d learn to accept it, to live with it, that tiny anxiety, as the small price she’d pay for her happiness, she thought now, holding up Mammy’s ring to show the others that she’d remembered, feeling it’s nubbly, bumpy surface for the last time.
‘All present and correct,’ Mary-Pat had said triumphantly, ‘and I have the writing box in the footwell, not that I can reach down to my ankles nowadays. I haven’t seen my toes in about six months.’ And she beamed a smile of pure happiness, patting the huge mound of her stomach with a sigh of satisfaction. Rosie had to admire her sister: after a lifetime of grafting, of looking after everyone other than herself, here she was, about to do it all over again. She’d spent her whole life railing against something that seemed to come to her naturally. Maybe it was because she wasn’t spending all of her energy on Daddy, on propping him up, guilt propelling her up to St Benildus’s every single day. Now, she went twice a week: once with Duke and once with Rosie, Josh sitting on her knee examining Mary-Pat’s key chain with the silver fish on it, while the two of them chatted and Daddy sat there, a faraway look in his eyes. And then, in a moment of lucidity, he’d ask to hold Josh. Daddy liked babies, he always had, and even though he gave no sign that he recognised either of them, he was happy to dandle Josh on his knee and to sing ‘Báidín Fheilimí’, the gentle tune they’d all learned in school, often lulling Josh to sleep. ‘Haven’t lost my touch,’ Daddy would say, handing him back gently to Rosie.
‘No, you haven’t indeed, Daddy,’ Mary-Pat would reply. It was their signal to leave, and they’d both walk off down the corridor with Josh, and Rosie would think about that first time she’d visited him and had first understood where life had taken him. How sad she’d been at the loss of it, how shocked at the sight of him so diminished. She would wonder if he’d ever thought to question his life and the choices he’d made, and she’d thank him, too, for having said those words at her wedding. The change had been hard and painful, but if he had never spoken, if he hadn’t turned her whole life upside down, hers and everyone else’s, they’d probably have spent the rest of their lives living in the past. And that was no life at all.
‘Right … it’s here somewhere,’ Pius was saying, slowing the engine down and turning onto a long, straight road bordered by threadbare hawthorn hedges, the grey-blue smudge of the sea just visible at the end. They were all silent as they drove on, until they got to a crossroads. ‘Carnsore Strand’ read a brown sign with a fishing rod on it that pointed left, but Pius turned right instead. ‘If they’re anything like the boyos at home, they’ll have turned the signs around,’ he said. ‘And anyway, I seem to remember it being this way.’ And he was right: a hundred yards later, a drift of sand covered the tarmac and a red-and-white bollard announced the end of the road that led to the sea.
‘Hang on, MP, I’ll help you out,’ June was saying, opening the door, a blast of icy air shooting into the car. When she got out, her hair blew up around her face, which turned instantly blue, and she mouthed, ‘It’s freezing.’
‘Ready, Joshie?’ Rosie said, putting his arms into the padded all-in-one which she’d half-removed in the heat of the car and lifting him gently out of the seat. She held him for a second, his warm cheek next to hers, and she breathed him in, his scent of mashed banana and milk, the way his long black eyelashes fluttered against her cheek.
He sucked in a huge breath of shock when they stepped outside into the freezing wind, his eyes round, his lips beginning to quiver. Rosie bounced him up and down to soothe him, pointing to the churning grey waves. ‘Look, Joshie, the sea.’
‘Right, let’s get this over with before we all freeze to death,’ Mary-Pat was saying. She held the writing box open. Pius was first, carefully folding the garden plan and putting it in. June hesitated for a second then put the book in, kissing her hand first and then placing it on the book. ‘Oh, I can’t bear it,’ she muttered, her eyes filling with tears. Mary-Pat put the shell gently in then closed the box and tucked her arm into June’s. ‘All set, Rosie?’ She looked at Rosie enquiringly, her eyes bright, her cheeks pink with the cold. For a moment, she looked like the girl Rosie remembered as a child, with her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, singing a song as she fried bacon on the pan for tea. It was as if the years had been rolled back and she was fourteen, free from the weight of all that had followed.
Rosie’s hand hovered over the box in mid-air, the ring dangling in space. She tried to loosen the grip of her fingers, but they clung onto the ring as if of their own will. ‘Could I … ehm, would it be OK if I just put it in when we find the right spot? I just need another minute.’
Mary-Pat didn’t reply, just reached out and squeezed Rosie’s arm, then turned to June. ‘C’mon, love, let’s go and find a good spot, will we?’ The two of them walked off towards the dunes in the early-winter light, towards the sea, the grey waves crashing on the stones. Rosie could hear the two of them talking. ‘Do you remember the day we came down here with that fellow, what was his name?’ Mary-Pat was saying.
‘Bob,’ June said. ‘And you and I started fighting and Mammy slapped me. Oh, I’ll never forget that slap – I can still feel the sting now.’ She smiled. ‘I had no idea what was going on in their lives, did you? I just knew I’d done something to make Mammy angry.’
‘There was nothing we could have done, love,’ Mary-Pat was saying. ‘Nothing at all.’
For a moment, Rosie tried to follow what he
r sisters were talking about but then she relaxed. There was no point, she realised. She’d spent her whole life trying to follow conversations she didn’t entirely understand, trying to feel part of the family by taking their memories as her own, by claiming that, of course, she could remember the time they’d gone to the funfair or the demonstration, when she really didn’t have a clue. She hadn’t been there. She had her own memories instead: of Daddy and herself walking through the fields to school, of Pius teaching her how to tie a fly or start a fire with two sticks, of Mary-Pat spending a whole rainy afternoon with her, rolling out pastry and cutting it into the shape of a shamrock because Sr Fidelma had asked them to bring something in for St Patrick’s Day.
‘Let me take that little fellow.’ Pius was beside her now, gently pulling Josh out of her arms and tucking him onto his hip. Josh didn’t protest because he loved his Uncle Pi, his gentleness and his sense of strength and the fact that he didn’t fuss over him like his aunties did, making those funny, high-pitched squealing sounds that made him wince. They walked to where Mary-Pat and June were standing, June bending down to pick up the stones while Mary-Pat pointed and gave orders. ‘For God’s sake, MP, I’m going as fast as I can,’ June was saying, her hands damp as she clawed at the sand, a grimace on her face. She didn’t like dirt, June.
‘I’d better give her a hand.’ Pi smiled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small fold-up trowel in a little purple carry-case. ‘I bought this just in case.’ June was only too happy to let Pi dig, and in no time they were all standing over a sizeable hole, a little puddle of water gathering at the bottom of it. For a second, Rosie wondered if it was the right kind of place: it looked so dark and wet and cold, like a grave. As if they were burying her under the sand. But she wasn’t dead. She was out there somewhere, living her life, moving forward while they’d all stood still. She looked at Pius for a second and he must have read her thoughts because he reached out and squeezed her arm. ‘We’re not burying her, Rosie love. It’s not her we’re laying to rest; it’s the past. We have to let go of it now,’ he said gently.
‘You’re right.’ She nodded quietly, but she held onto Mammy’s ring, running her fingers over the rough surface for the last time. It was the only thing she had left that tied her to Mammy, she thought. Just one ring. And then she looked down at it, at the ripple of white running through the purple stone, at the scratches on the dull silver, and she thought, it’s just a ring. That’s all it is. We invest objects with all of our memories and feelings, but at the end of the day, they’re just things. It’s the memories that remain. I don’t need Mammy’s ring to remind me because I know I won’t ever forget her.
She found her grip loosening on the ring, and she dropped it in, hearing it clatter against the dark wood, and then she looked up and her sisters were both smiling at her. We’re here, they were saying. We’re always here.
They all watched as Pius put the box gently inside, covering it up again with the sand and then a thick covering of stones.
‘Should we say a prayer?’ June said.
Mary-Pat roared with laughter. ‘Mammy would kill you stone dead if you said a prayer. How about we just put a stone each on top and say whatever it is we have to say. To ourselves of course – we don’t need to spill it all out like we’re at some kind of group therapy session.’
Pius looked at Rosie and the two of them tried hard not to smile. ‘You first, Pi,’ Mary-Pat commanded.
And that’s what they did. They stood there around the little mound on the beach, the bitter wind whipping around them, and they each placed a stone on top, standing there for a few moments and then nodding to say that they’d finished. Rosie found a pure white stone with a streak of purple in it that she thought Mammy would have approved of, and she and Josh placed it gently on top of the large smooth grey one Pi had selected, his little fingers clasped around hers.
When it came to her turn, she had the words ready in her mind, but then she realised she couldn’t use them. She was a mother herself now and she knew how hard-won that word was, how much it meant. ‘Goodbye, Michelle,’ she said to herself. It was time to stop calling her Mammy now.
May 2012
Michelle
‘Mrs O’Connor?’ The nurse is a lovely young woman with skin the colour of chocolate, and when she calls out my name I take a while to come back to myself, to realise that I’m sitting on a hard plastic seat outside a doctor’s office in a hospital in the city, a full five hours on dusty roads from the village. I have a thick file in my hand, with my X-rays in it. The doctor first showed them to me just three weeks ago, the small shadow on my lung the size of a ten-pence piece. It looked harmless, like the radiographer had just put a thumb across my ribcage, but it’s not and it had to be cut out of me. When I think of it, that area in my chest contracts in pain.
‘How are we today, Mrs O’Connor?’ the doctor says cheerfully, wiping his hands with that alcohol handwash they all use nowadays. I hate the way he calls me ‘we’. There is no ‘we’, it’s just me. Maybe he assumes there is a ‘we’ because I call myself ‘Mrs’, but he doesn’t know that I do it for practical reasons – it’s easier in a country like this for there to be a husband hovering somewhere. It makes me appear respectable.
‘Any unpleasant symptoms? Any discomfort?’ he’s saying, examining the small wound below my left breast. ‘Nice and clean anyway.’ He stands up again and goes to the sink to wash his hands. ‘Well, we’re ready to start chemotherapy now. It can be debilitating, but you’re still a young woman and you’ll respond well, I’m sure. Are you prepared for the hair loss?’ He turns and flips my file open on the desk, his eyes scanning the printed blue sheets. ‘It’s not a given, of course, but with your medication and the treatment dose …’ he’s saying softly.
I interrupt him. ‘I don’t want any more of it.’ As I say the words, I don’t quite believe I’m the one talking. The words just seemed to come out of my mouth. But as I speak, I know it’s the truth. Before, I had a reason to get treatment, to get better, to keep up that relentless march forward, just as I have since the day I came to this place. Never look back, I used to say to myself, even while that was all I seemed able to do. The mantra helped me, it fooled me into thinking that my life was moving forward to a certain point, to the day that I would hold my children in my arms again. But now, it seems there’s no need to pretend any longer.
He’s puzzled for a few moments, before taking up his spiel again as if I haven’t spoken. ‘You’ll probably feel quite tired, but again, that should lift towards the end of treatment and the anti-emetics will help with any vomiting—’
‘I don’t think you heard me. I don’t want any further treatment.’
He stops in mid-sentence, the X-ray in his hand, as if only just realising I’ve spoken. ‘Am I hearing you right, Michelle?’ His beetle-black eyebrows crease into a frown.
‘You are.’ I sit up straight on my chair.
He clears his throat. ‘Michelle, I need you to be very clear about this. Treatment will prolong your life by anything up to a year.’ And then he looks at me, the madwoman who doesn’t want to live for another year, an expression of horror and distaste on his face.
It’s my life, I think. My life and my death. ‘But I will die, isn’t that what you told me?’
‘Well, sooner or later. The prognosis with treatment is for extension to life by anything from months to years …’
‘Well, I’m ready to go now. I’ve decided.’
Dr Abdallah looks at the nurse and then back at me. When he talks, it’s in the careful tones of a man dealing with a person who isn’t of sound mind. ‘I don’t know if you realise what you’re saying. Maybe you need to take it home and share it with your family.’
I close my eyes for a second and then open them again. There’s a silence before I manage, ‘No. No family.’ I get up abruptly and my thighs squeak on the hot plastic and I say nothing more to the handsome doctor, ignoring his panic when I open the door and le
ave that stuffy office and walk down the endless sets of stairs to the front door and out onto the hot pavement, the sun bright on my face. I stand there for a few moments, the traffic whizzing by on the street in front of me, a blast of horns and a screech of brakes as one car veers in front of another. Joseph said he would collect me at 11.30 and, mechanically, I look down at my watch, then down the street to where the white bulk of the Land Rover is parked beside an election poster for the presidential race. ‘A Better Life’ is promised beneath the smiling face of the candidate, a man renowned for taking backhanders.
Joseph catches sight of me and drives towards me. ‘Habari?’ he asks briefly, running around the front of the car and opening the door for me, a gesture which would once have infuriated me, but I know that Joseph is doing it out of kindness. ‘Any news?’