by Martha Long
‘What? The impudence! I’m not standing for this! That’s it! I’m givin you a ticket,’ he roared, shifting fast to get in front and take down my registration.
‘Yeah! An I’m going to shove a red-hot poker up your arse, Adolf!’ I snorted.
‘That’s it! I’m getting the guards for you. You’re now after breaking a very serious law, threatening me! I have witnesses!’ he screamed, looking around at a pensioner holding the lead of a geriatric mutt as it stopped for a piss, then sniffed. Now satisfied, it lifted the head, staring into the distance, then got moving and creaked off.
We watched as the pensioner suddenly came to life and shuffled after it, wanting to leave Adolf and the madness behind. Adolf watched them slowly make their way in the distance, then he whipped back on me.
‘You stay right there! I’m making a citizen’s arrest!’ he croaked, letting out a tortured scream, waving the fist, shouting, ‘POLICE! Get the guards!’
Fuck! I spun me head around seeing if there was a blue bottle galvanised into action? No, no sign of a copper beetling down the road with the flat feet hammering the footpath, book at the ready to sort me out. No! Nothing! Just a few heads turning to see what the fuss was about, saw it was only Adolf and kept moving. He’s the man everyone loves to hate.
‘Tut-tut! The heart! The heart,’ I said slowly, really tormenting him now. ‘Think of the wife, Adolf,’ I warned, then took off in a puff of smoke, screaming up the road, melting tar.
‘Home,’ I breathed, walking back into the silent house. I stopped in the hall to throw down my bag, leaving the keys sitting on the table.
I lifted my shoulders, taking in a deep breath, feeling a tingle of excitement running through me. Right, better keep moving, things to do. First things first, get that phone call made. ‘Holiday time! Nothing to do and all day to do it,’ I sang, rushing for the phone. I waited, hearing it ring out, sounding like it is shrilling to an empty house. Nope! Not there, I thought, just about to hang up.
‘Hello!’ a voice boomed. My heart leapt, remembering the voice that gave so much pleasure, then quivered with remembered pain. Fuck! I am just like Pavlov’s dog.
‘Well, hello there,’ I said sexily, hearing the ghost of a younger self suddenly spring to life. I clung to it momentarily, letting the bittersweet feelings wash over me, then reined them in as disgust poured out. That’s it! Now delusional, I’m seeing a young Ralph.
‘Martha?’
‘Who else? Brigitte Bardot? I think you would have to dig her up!’
‘No, you will do me nicely,’ he said quietly, dropping his voice. ‘How are you, my love? I was just this minute thinking of you. I was about to telephone. What is happening with you? All set for your break?’
‘Oh, yes, happy days!’
‘So, what are the arrangements, Martha? When shall I see you? Tomorrow night, I hope!’
‘Don’t be silly, Ralph! I’m a busy woman.’
‘No! This is impossible. I do not see enough of you. I miss you, darling,’ he whined, lowering his voice like he was in pain.
‘Well, I will be in London on Friday, stay the week there with friends, then buy the plane ticket and travel over to you in France, arriving on the following Monday. I should get there sometime in the evening. How about that?’
‘Oh, really, Martha, must you? I don’t want to share you. As it is, we don’t see enough of each other. You abandon me for too long,’ he moaned, trying to make it into a joke.
Ah, here! Fuck this, I thought, getting a sudden rush of annoyance heating up the chest. ‘Well! You live there and I have my commitments here. Commitments being the operative word, Ralph dear, as you once kept telling me.’ I sniffed long and slowly, showing no mercy at the lonely cry tearing out of him, then suddenly getting a lovely sense of satisfaction out of that. Hmm, nothing like having the boot on the other foot. For the first time in his life it’s hitting him what it feels like to be second best.
The phone went silent while he worked his head around that one. I listened, hearing the deep sighs of pity for himself, then the quick breaths as the brain suddenly came up with the idea I might not turn up at all.
‘Yes,’ he said slowly, speaking quietly like he was still thinking.
‘Come on, Ralph! Say something or I’m going. I need to get moving. I have things to do,’ I said, getting irritated at hearing nothing but the heavy breathing out of him. Now he’s retired, he has all the time in the world to do nothing but take life easy.
‘Too late have I loved thee,’ he suddenly breathed heavily, sounding like it was a last gasp. ‘We should have married. I should have married you!’ he suddenly said, coming to life.
I listened, thinking about that, as a cold anger started to turn my blood to ice. All them years of emptiness, heartache, longing and loss. Because of him, twice I ran panicked. First time into that brick wall Ulick, knocking myself senseless with the shock of finding myself trapped, then stumbling out the other end bruised and battered. The second time I thought I had more sense. But only enough to get out of that mess and use the anger wisely. I took on fighting the world and walked away with my winning share. Oh, by hell did I just! Oh, yes! Now I am on equal terms with the best of them. Free, independent, no Jackser, no Ralph digging a hole in my heart. I made my own way and I am sitting on top of the world. My children are now ready to face out into a different world. It won’t be as I once did, because they will be equipped.
‘The world is ruled by law, kids. It dictates our every breathing moment,’ I told them. ‘Learn what it’s about and be nobody’s fool! Look down on no one and look up to nobody. Follow your gut feeling, trust your instincts and if something feels wrong, then it is! There is no need to search the world for answers. It is blind because it sees only what it wants and deaf because it listens only to what it wants to hear. In you lies truth, love, peace and the beauty that you are your own unique self. Have the will and you can move mountains. You carry all that power inside you. Just listen and you will hear it, be still and you will feel it. That is what I learned, making my way through the world.’
I wonder do they hear me, those children of mine, never mind even listen. Oh, well, they will find their own path. Youth is not wasted on the young. They need it to keep them going because they are so bloody daft. Oh, what fun it is to be young! But they can keep it. Once was enough for me!
Already I have done myself a big favour by letting go of the hidden pain. Now the world and his wife knows who I really was. I am free … Almost! Because here we go again. Ralph! The man who has wafted through life like a pharaoh on his throne – always, but always, the world thrown at his feet. The insensitive bastard – did he ever really understand the pain he cost me? Now he is old, left out to graze, and is sad and lonely – it is now he wants me, only now. He’s had it all, now he wants the rest – a woman to cosset him when he has nothing better to do. The arrogant swine! It takes my breath away. Right, Ralph, two can play that game. Let’s see where it goes.
‘Ralph! Are you telling me now you never really loved me? It’s only now dawning on you that you do and should have married me?’
‘No, of course not. I have always loved you, but I do regret not marrying you.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said, shaking my head slowly, not doubting a word of the regret bit.
He said nothing while my brain ticked away, letting this bit of information slowly warm my belly. Oh, am I going to enjoy this!
Suddenly he interrupted, steaming into my thoughts, wanting to get in and spill his guts while the going was good.
‘We could still be married!’ he whispered, holding his breath in hope, chancing his fucking arm.
‘Are you asking me to marry you?’ I said quietly.
‘Yes, my love. I want that more than anything,’ he said, sounding like what God must have to his apostles when handing out the ten commandments. I could hear the sacred, solemn and commanding gravitas as he intoned this decision. Then he took in a sharp breath, waiting, holdin
g it like his life depended on it.
‘So ask me!’ I said, sensing my time has come to clear my path strewn with a rubble of pain all thrown there by Ralph. A lifetime of loneliness, longing, hoping and waiting. Then a nothingness – just an empty heart rattling with echoes of the yesterdays’ fading hopes and dying dreams. But it didn’t kill me. It filled me with the wisdom of age as we look less for ourselves and more out for others. For me, it was my little ones!
‘Really! Oh, my darling! You would like me to propose to you?’ he said, sounding like he was flying to the moon.
‘Yes!’ I said quietly, nodding my head solemnly, feeling like the astronaut flying him there. I’m all command and fully in control.
‘Oh, darling, would you really become my wife? I do so want to be your husband,’ he laughed, letting his voice rise with the excitement.
I took in a deep breath. ‘No, Ralph! Definitely not! First there’s the little matter of “geriatric droop” and “little” is the operative word in this matter …’
‘WHAT?!’ he shouted. ‘That is balderdash! Just you …’
‘Don’t interrupt, Ralph! I’m not finished!’ I ordered.
‘Very well! Carry on!’ he commanded, now sounding cold, shock and disappointment suddenly replacing his joy.
I breathed in slowly and heavily, letting it out in a controlled nice and easy air of no hurry on me, then continued.
‘Now, while you are fast galloping into your twilight years, I am a woman in my prime. I am still living in hopes of abandoning myself to some stunning stud who will convince me to throw away my vow of perpetual virginity! And …’
‘Oh, really, Martha! What are you bloody on about? Of course I am still virile …’
‘WE WOULD SPEND A BLEEDIN FORTUNE ON VIAGRA! And that’s only for a start,’ I screamed, letting fly the rage erupting like a volcano.
Wait! That’s no good. Forget that, Martha. Cool down. Vengeance, when a dish eaten cold, should be savoured slowly – you waited long enough for it! You want him to get the message, feel what you once felt. Bastard – even now he’s still at it. The ego of him! He’s now offering me the scrapings from the bottom of the pot! I snorted, letting my chest heave up and down, feeling the rage blinding me with red spots sparking in front of my eyeballs. I’m running away with myself again! It’s too much. I have to get the boot in!
Enough, Martha, I told meself quietly. For fuck sake, calm down! Jaysus, I must have burst a blood vessel.
‘Darling, please …’
‘Don’t darling me, Ralph Fitzgerald! You are only asking me now to marry you because you want me to push you around in your bleedin wheelchair,’ I hissed. Then paused as a thought suddenly struck me. Hang on – there could be something in this! He’s rich! Very rich … I was now getting the picture. All that money – isn’t it better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave? Definitely! Oh, definitely, indeed it is. Right! Now in for the kill.
‘Ralph,’ I croaked, hearing it come out in a strangled gasp now I was panting from excitement – it was all mixing with the anger.
‘Ralph,’ I coughed, hearing my voice mellow down into a sexy husk, letting a huge grin spread across my face. Softly softly catchee monkey! Better it come late than never.
‘Yes, darling?’ he sighed, sounding relieved I had calmed down.
I paused, trying to work out the best way of saying it.
‘Go on, darling. What is it, my love?’ he said, trying to coax me.
‘Eh!’ Cough. I was now sounding like the ma. ‘What would we do for money? I mean, where would we live? We would have to sell your house in France. Or … keep it for the weekends? Or, wait, keep my house for the weekends? And, eh …’
‘I do not need a wheelchair!’ he barked. ‘Nor do I yet need the aid of Viagra,’ he mumbled, giving a half-laugh.
‘Oh, if you say so, Ralph, I would well believe you!’ I grinned happily, then settled to go straight in for the jugular. ‘But now, more important pressing matters to discuss, Ralph. What about your money? Would I get to inherit it all? Your estate, your entire assets clear and without impediment?’
The air suddenly changed, charged, then surged with exploding atoms as I listened, hearing it crackling through the silence. Then there was a slow deep breath.
‘Martha, my wife would be well provided for! Yes, of course, she would inherit my estate. But I do see now where you are coming from,’ he snapped coldly. ‘I … this is so unworthy!’
Then silence. I waited, but everything had suddenly gone quiet.
I listened, now hearing only the dialling tone. I wonder were we cut off? ‘Hello!’ I shook the phone, rattling it, wondering what was happening. I looked, seeing it was still plugged into the socket. No, I hadn’t pulled it out. Then it hit me – the fucker! He hung up on me. I stared at the phone with my mouth hanging open, then dropped it gently back into its cradle, still staring, still caught in the moment when I felt a sudden rush erupting. It screamed out of me, laughing. I doubled up, roaring the head off meself. Jaysus! You old fool. I don’t need you or your money! Shows how much the little you know about me! No, Doctor … Father Ralph Fitzgerald, that road is closed long ago with no way back.
Oh, Ralph Fitzgerald, you never did love me then, I thought sadly, and you don’t love me now. You just need me. ‘No,’ I muttered quietly, ‘my love once given is for ever. I have always loved you, Ralph, and deep down I always will. But I wouldn’t sell my soul to the devil and let you win! Because what is left of my life is worth more than you now, and all your money, can give me.’
For some reason, tears were streaming down my face. I was crying for all the tears shed for the loss of a love that never really existed. I blew my nose and wiped them away, then grabbed my coat and bag, heading out for the evening. Right, dinner with Yvonne then pack later. Celebration time – holidays! I told myself, lifting my shoulders and straightening myself to make the picture of Ralph in his loneliness disappear. It’s funny, but this is not the outcome I expected.
‘Bye, Ralphie,’ I whispered, ‘pity you didn’t tune in earlier when I recently landed myself back into your life, then. You would have seen I had a hidden agenda. Oh, yes! Vengeance is indeed a dish best eaten cold.’
Or is it? I don’t feel triumphant with victory, just a little diminished – hollow. Yet, you caused me so much pain and sadness, I knew this day would come. We have spent a lifetime weaving our way in and out of each other’s lives – embracing like two doomed lovers, then fleeing into the night. For me, racing from an agony of demons and a sense of loss so great it plunged me thundering back into a pitch-black darkness of stormy seas, I have been lashed, battered and thrown. But always in my heart I knew I would ride it out. There is a higher power and I prayed it would take me to sanctuary and land me down in a safe port. I was right to believe, because I am there now.
Yes, it was as if our life played out on the open seas. One with all the majesty of a great ocean liner; the other, a small rust bucket. You stopped to offer assistance, comfort and a few words of kindness but then sailed off into the sunset, leaving me clinging to a raft. Now more forlorn and drifting directionless, I was heading deeper into very dangerous waters. All I could do was cling on as the vast ocean sea swept me up and hurtled me down, dragging me all the way into a darkness, a nothingness, with a treacherous sea of murderous loneliness. Oh, it nearly killed me. I almost drowned.
Would I have been better off if our paths hadn’t crossed on that dark fateful winter night so very long ago? I only know we met again and this time we were almost equal. It was full of promise, but yet again he took sail, leaving me to face into the wind and take more chances. Too late I saw the dark menacing clouds descending over my head. That was only when I was in the thick of it. Nothing for it but to battle on, the future promising even more vicious and treacherous snares. I was to meet unfettered madness revelling in a pure form of evil so villainous it made even Jackser look innocent. It was all waiting for me, but on and on
I ploughed, vowing never to look back.
Not until now, when we have met again. Only this time he is shipwrecked, stranded on a lonely island of old age with no way off. It is he who now watches forlornly as I sail away in all my majesty, heading for the sunset. So be it! This is the course he set himself all those long years ago. The march of time has finally caught up with him and now he knows what it feels like to bleed from the raw pain of loneliness just as I once did. I only hope his God is merciful, as mine was to me.
34
I stared at the manuscript, looking at the lines of words filling up the white spaces that made up a document. For now they were nothing, just letters sitting there staring back at me that would mean nothing to no one if left alone. All the huff and puff, the blood, sweat and tears, the agony and the ecstasy that has poured into the writing of these words means nothing while they just sit there. But it has been my life, my guts, my soul. I feel emptied now. No, I don’t want to part with this. Once I hand this over, it feels like I will be giving my soul to the world and the devil to do with me what they will.
‘Oh, just think about it, Martha,’ I muttered, sighing long and hard, feeling very weary as I closed the laptop on the last book in the ‘Ma’ series – Ma, Jackser’s Dyin Alone. ‘Yes, the very last one,’ I sighed. ‘Seven books in all. Now it really is over,’ I muttered, feeling my heart plunge to sit in my belly. I’m not sending this to the publishers and I don’t know why. But maybe I’m just tired after coming to the end of a long and painful aul journey. I have been writing non-stop since the few years after Jackser died. I forgave him and that opened the door to setting me free. But how could I be free when I didn’t know who I was? I had discovered bits of me when sitting at Jackser’s bedside – it was during the last days of his life when he lay dying. So, there was nothing for it now but to go back and find the rest.
It was the real Martha Long, ‘the little one’, who had forgiven Jackser, but I had left her behind because she wasn’t good enough for me. Now I needed to find her and ask forgiveness. Oh, the road was hard and sometimes hell with the devil on my back, but each book was a landmark stripping away the masks. Now I’m sitting gaping, staring inside myself, I feel naked and exposed, left bare without any masks to hide behind. Jesus, I’m looking at myself as I truly am! Do I really want to cover up again? Is that what this is about, what is really wrong with me? No! I wouldn’t want to go back to being a shadow, a woman wafting through life like the world was her stage. She was hollow, because no one could get close. She could be whatever you wanted her to be; she had a mask for every occasion. The isolation was so lonely sometimes I felt like I could be from another planet. Nobody on this earth knew the real me; I didn’t even know myself.