by M. J. Hyland
‘Hello, John. Why aren’t you at school?’
‘I’m sick,’ I say.
‘You don’t look sick.’
‘I am.’
‘Then you should be in bed.’
‘I don’t feel as sick when I’m standing up or sitting.’
Lying like this makes my heart feel squeezed, as though there’s a belt tied around my chest.
‘All the same, if you’re really sick you should be in bed.’
‘I will,’ I say. ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’
‘Why don’t you get the thermometer from the toilet cabinet and we’ll see if you have a temperature?’
‘In a minute. I want to have an important talk first.’
‘Well then, come in and close the door behind you.’
It’s cold, but she has no fire burning. ‘Let me take off my glasses,’ she says, ‘so I can hear better.’
I want to sit in the armchair she has her feet on because I’d rather not sit on her sagging mattress which is stuffed full of horsehair and stinks of wet animal. I stand by the armchair until she moves her feet. I sit.
‘What’s new and exciting?’ she asks.
‘Nothing really,’ I say.
‘Well, aren’t you lovely company? I thought you wanted to chat.’
I clear my throat. ‘Has anybody said anything to do with me and lies?’
‘Have you been caught telling fibs?’
‘No. But has anybody been talking about detecting lies?’
‘No. Should they have?’
‘No. It’s just that I’m reading lots of books about lie detection and I just wondered if anybody had mentioned that.’
‘No.’
‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has Mam spoken to you about getting money for our trip to Niagara?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know how much it would cost to go to Canada?’
‘What are you after?’ she asks.
‘Well, she’s always said she’ll take me to Niagara after my Leaving is finished, but I want to go sooner. She says we can’t afford it now and I was wondering whether you could help.’
She laughs. ‘She’s the cat’s mother.’
‘Sorry. I meant Mammy. All I want to know is whether you could help us with the money.’
‘That’s blunt.’
‘Maybe you could come too.’
‘Where do you think my money comes from?’ she asks. She laughs again and I look down at the red swirls in the carpet, but they make me dizzy. I look back up. ‘You got a whole lot of money when Grandad died, didn’t you? From all the jewellery you sold, and from the shop and things like that.’
‘And how long do you think that money will last?’ She moves forward in her recliner.
‘A long time,’ I say.
‘Maybe it would be better to wait until you’ve finished your schooling, and …’
Suddenly she stops talking. She looks past me, over my shoulder, towards the door behind me, as though I am not there.
‘Granny?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was really hoping …’
‘And I was really hoping you wouldn’t turn out like your father. Do you know he thinks he has a right to my money? Yes. He thinks if I didn’t spend any on myself, he’d have a nice living allowance.’
Her voice is loud now and she doesn’t look at me, she looks at my elbow.
‘But bearing children doesn’t make a woman a martyr. And those that sacrifice too much for their children are often sorry.’
It is as though I’m not in the room.
‘Next year I think I’ll go on a cruise around the world. Maybe I’ll go twice. Until my head spins!’
‘But why does Da have to work when he’s studying for an exam at Trinity?’
She looks at me as though I have hit her. ‘He’s had three years of study. If he was serious, he’d have done that exam by now. If I believed your father was going to study for his degree, I’d not nag him to work, but I don’t believe him.’
Now she almost shouts. ‘And I’ve got exactly nine days of patience left. Yes, that’s all. Nine days of patience left and then the light goes out!’
‘That’s not fair,’ I say.
She points behind me and laughs. ‘You’re not always as quick as you like to think you are, young John Egan.’
I look behind me at the door, and I see what she has been staring at. In the two-inch gap under the door, there is a pair of black shoes. Somebody is standing outside; somebody has been standing outside all the while.
I thought Da had gone into town on the bus, and I didn’t hear him come back in. I get out of the armchair and rush towards the door, but my grandmother stands and grabs hold of my shirt.
‘Leave it, John. There’s no point going after an eavesdropper. There’s no good whatsoever in going after him.’
But I can’t help it. I open the door and look. He has gone.
‘Sit,’ she says. ‘There’s more I need to say.’ I sit down and she reaches across to take my hand. It’s a long way for her to stretch but I don’t lean forward to make it easier.
‘Will we have to leave now?’ I ask. ‘Will you throw us out?’
‘Of course not. I’d never ask you to leave here.’
‘Do you swear?’
‘I’d swear on the Holy Bible only it’s over there on the dressing table,’ she says. ‘Maybe if I shout, the Bible will hear me.’
She jokes, but there is nothing funny in what she says and I will not laugh. Besides, she is lying.
Her voice is high-pitched, she doesn’t blink and doesn’t wave her hands the way she usually does. Her hands are dead in her lap.
‘All right,’ I say. ‘That’s good.’
‘And as for Niagara,’ she says, ‘if your mother has promised she’ll take you there when you’ve finished your Leaving, I’m certain she’ll do it. Your mother doesn’t break promises.’
Maybe Mammy forgot, but I now know she hasn’t asked Granny about Niagara like she said she would.
‘I’m going to watch TV now,’ I say.
But I don’t watch television. I look everywhere for my father. I go outside and wait for him by the front gate. It is very cold and the cows in the paddock across the road have steam blowing from their nostrils. I rub my hands together and jog up and down on the spot. Some of the cows look at me. Usually I wave at them or say hello, or stare back. Animals are good at staring and they don’t mind it.
After nearly an hour of waiting outside by the gate I go into the kitchen. I eat a jam sandwich and then I go to the living room and watch television by the fire until half five. At half six I hear my mother coming through the front door. I go out to the hallway to greet her. I watch her carefully as she removes her coat. She stands for a moment, looking around.
‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ she says.
I go with her into the kitchen and watch while she puts the kettle on the range and rinses two cups. When the tea is made she shuts the door. She opens a packet of Digestives and puts six of them on a plate. I don’t want to tell her I didn’t go to school.
‘Is that all we’re having for tea?’
‘I had a big dinner at twelve o’clock at the church hall. But I’ll make you some soup if you want.’
‘Where’s Da?’ I ask. ‘Did you see him on the way home?’
‘He’s probably gone to visit your Uncle Jack while he’s in Gorey.’
‘Why is Uncle Jack in Gorey? Where is he staying? In a hotel? What is he talking to Da about?’
‘Your uncle’s here from Dublin on business.’
‘What kind of business?’
‘Boring business.’
‘What kind?’
‘Mind-your-business kind of business.’
I don’t laugh. I stand up and walk around the table. I walk around it twice. I don’t really know that I’m doing it until she says, ‘Sit down!’
I sit a
nd scratch my head. ‘You’ve been like a crazy ghost,’ she says. ‘What’s the matter?’
I’ve been waiting for her to ask me but, now that she has, it’s not the way I wanted her to ask. ‘Why am I like a ghost?’ I ask.
She puts her hand on my hand. She looks tired. There are bags under her eyes, almost black, and she has grey hairs. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, but her hair is messy today and the grey sticks out.
‘I’m sorry, John. I only mean that you creep around. You keep appearing in places.’
‘What places?’
‘You come to my room and don’t respect my privacy, or your father’s.’
‘That’s not true.’
She ruffles my hair and pretends to laugh. I pull away. She has no choice but to speak to me in a different way. ‘Oh, but you do, John. When I lie down to take a nap, suddenly you appear. I’m thinking of getting one of those Do Not Disturb signs from a hotel.’
She is trying to make me laugh, to cover up for the bad things she has said.
‘All right,’ I say, ‘I’ll leave you alone.’ I stand up.
‘John, darling. Please sit down. I don’t want you to leave me alone, I just want you to tell me what’s wrong. Will you tell me?’ She tugs on my arm until I sit down again.
‘Everything is different,’ I say. ‘You’re different and Da’s different and Granny’s different and even Brendan is different.’
‘Well, I don’t know about Brendan, but people who love each other sometimes have disagreements.’
‘That’s not it,’ I say. ‘Everybody is strange with me. Nobody treats me the same as they used to.’
She takes her hand away from mine and puts both hands around her cup. ‘You’re growing up, John. Sometimes things change when you grow up and it takes a while to get used to them.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like people don’t baby you any more. They don’t mollycoddle you. Be flattered by that. When people see you can stand on your own two feet, then they’ll not let you lean on them. If you can stand straight and tall, then that’s what people will expect of you. The tougher and stronger you are, the less they’ll look after you.’
Her words are strange and her head jerks up and down as though she’s trying to get a fly off her face. It’s not the kind of lie my father tells; it’s a white lie, a lie about how she feels; a lie to make me feel better. But it’s a lie.
I’m standing now, and my voice is loud and spitting. ‘You think I’m weird. If I were smaller everything would be different. The way it used to be.’
She swallows and looks away, afraid of me. ‘No, John, that’s not it at all.’
I move towards the door.
‘John, darling. Stay a minute. Let’s finish our tea and biscuits and then you can come and help me wash my hair.’
I stand near the door.
‘You’re very dear to me, John. Very dear to me.’
I ignore her and go to my room. A few minutes later she comes to me. She has a towel in her hand. ‘Come. Help me wash my hair. It’s in a desperate state. Don’t you love to help me wash my hair?’
She pulls her long brown hair over the top of her head so that it covers her face and she sticks her arms out in front like a ghoul and walks around my room bumping into things.
I get up and we go to the bathroom. I help her wash her long brown hair in the sink. I like how, when she dunks her head, her hair fills the sink and floats to the top and reaches out like seaweed.
I tell her about Brendan and Kate.
She stands and wraps the towel around her head and puts her hands on my shoulders.
‘If your friend is not tugging at your arm or calling you back, then he isn’t a friend. A friend must need you as well as love you. Wait and see whether he comes to you and tugs at your arm.’
‘Like you did before,’ I said.
‘Did I?’ she says.
‘Yes. Twice.’
‘Well then, I practise what I preach.’
I will write about this in The Gol of Seil. I will write that a person can change during a conversation, tell the truth, then tell lies; change from mean to kind, suddenly, without any warning at all.
16
At the end of school the next day, Kate bumps into me when I’m taking my coat off the rack in the corridor outside our classroom. ‘Whoops,’ she says. ‘So sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ I say.
‘I’ve heard all about you,’ she says. ‘Brendan’s told me.’
I try to put my coat on, but it falls from my numb fingers.
‘The smell of urine makes me feel sick,’ she says. ‘It puts me off drinking my milk. I’m already squeamish about milk and your smell just puts me off my milk even more.’
I’m hurt and I’m curious. I’ve never heard the word squeamish before, and it swims in my head.
‘Do you know what surreptitious means?’ I ask.
‘No, but I bet you don’t either,’ she says.
‘I do,’ I say. ‘It means in secret. The day I wet my pants, I was breaking a world record for not going to the toilet. I was doing it surreptitiously.’
I have an itch in the back of my throat, the kind of itch that threatens to turn into an uncontrollable cough. This is probably because I have lied. It will be good to learn to lie without my body doing anything bad to me.
‘You?’ she laughs. ‘How hilarious.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say.
I walk away.
But I can barely manage it. My legs, like my fingers, feel numb. The sound of my shoes on the floor is odd, one shoe making a louder noise than the other. My steps are out of rhythm; the stride on my right side is longer than the stride on my left.
I hold my breath and wonder if I might fall over. I want to lean against something. I have lost the knack of walking. I hold my breath until I’m out of the school grounds, until I reach the first tree at the start of the laneway. My heart is hurting. I walk quickly, then stop.
It’s a bright, clear day and the birds seem to know it. I look around and pay attention to the trees. I pay attention to the clouds between the trees. I turn three full circles like a discus thrower and throw a stone as hard as I can at the sky.
It’s a good, strong throw.
I wait for the sound of the stone, but it doesn’t come back down – at least, I don’t hear it land – and I stand in the laneway, puzzled about where it might have gone. And still the stone doesn’t land, and I smile at the sky.
By the time I arrive home, I’m not as sad as I expect to be. I go to the living room; there’s nobody there. I go to the kitchen; there’s nobody there either. Granny isn’t in her room but she has a fat, white candle lit on her dresser. She must be saying a novena. That was what she meant about having nine days of patience left. The novena will take nine days. But what is she praying for? For my father, praying that he’ll get a job? I will tell him when he comes home. I sit at the kitchen table and wait.
When my mother comes home, she goes straight upstairs to her bedroom. It’s night-time and when I see my father standing in the kitchen doorway, I realise that I’ve been sitting in complete darkness.
He comes to me and puts his hand on my head. ‘I’ll make you some sausages for tea,’ he says.
‘Where have you been?’ I ask.
‘Working,’ he says as he turns on the lamps.
‘Where? What work?’
‘Let me make these sausages and then we can watch the idiot box together and we can talk. All right?’
‘Granny is saying a novena so you’ll get a job. It must have worked already.’
He throws his head back and opens his mouth and keeps it open and his head thrown back. This is his way of laughing without making any sound.
‘Why are you laughing like that?’ I ask.
‘Is laughing a crime now?’
‘No.’
‘Just as well, because I’m in the mood for it.’
He tousles my hair a
nd smiles at me.
‘Where’s Mam?’ I ask.
‘Upstairs. Bedroom. Leave her in peace.’
‘I want to talk to her,’ I say. ‘I have to tell her something important.’
‘Is something the matter?’
‘There’s nothing the matter with me. But isn’t there something wrong with you and Granny?’
He pulls hard at his fringe, tugs the thick hair, using his fingers to pull it down, straight and flat over his right eye. ‘We’ve had a few discussions and we’ve disagreed over a few things, but we’ve made our peace. Anyway, it’s not anything for you to worry about.’
‘I’m going upstairs,’ I say.
‘I said to leave her.’
‘I have to talk to her about something.’
‘John, can you not just leave your mam in peace? You’ll see her soon enough.’
We are silent while he makes the sausages and then he leaves the kitchen with his plate and goes to the living room. I follow. He sits on the settee and I sit down with him. We each have a plate of sausages; four sausages each.
‘If you’ve anything to get off your chest, you can always tell me,’ he says.
I pick up a sausage and put it back down again. ‘Brendan’s not talking to me,’ I say.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
He eats a whole sausage without chewing, swallows it in three mouthfuls. The chunks of sausage are so big I can see them going down his throat.
‘Have you asked him why?’
‘No,’ I say, looking at my plate.
‘Well if you don’t ask him you won’t find out, will you?’
I don’t want to talk about the day I wet my pants. ‘He’s made friends with the new girl.’
‘Oh. Well then, I think you should make friends with her.’
‘But I don’t think he wants me to be his friend any more.’
My father has already finished his sausages. ‘Are you going to eat yours?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘I think you should talk to Brendan.’ He scratches his chin. ‘I think you should talk to your friend and not go running to your mother.’
I make a sausage stand upright and use it to push another one over on its side.