They stood facing each other, shaken. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffed, pawing at her tears with the back of her hand.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘No, I’m sorry. Giving you all my problems.’
Her eyes blazed and what she was going to say passed, unspoken, over her face. She nudged him back against the wall. Her busy tongue in his mouth. Her hands clasped the back of his neck. His hands slid down her back. He pressed in close, but never close enough. Her lips stung his mouth as he whispered, ‘There’s only us.’
She took his hand, guiding him towards her bed.
Day 45
‘For God sake keep an eye on her so she doesn’t do something silly.’ Auntie Caroline was scouring dishes in the kitchen sink and handing them to Auntie Teresa, the second-youngest sister, with the unfortunate twist to her left eye that never came nor went. The same Auntie Teresa of family lore who went away to be a nun, but did not like the idea of being married to God very much and married wee Charlie instead. They seemed destined for each other. He was said to be the only one blinder in the family than Teresa. She was patting the dishes dry with a dish towel she had cleaned the table with and meandered around Auntie Caroline to stack washed plates in the cupboards. With so many people in the house and the noise of the telly, which was on constantly to keep the kids entertained, Auntie Caroline had to strain to hear what she was saying about Mary.
‘She’s the saddest face I’ve ever seen.’ Auntie Teresa swept a few digestive biscuit crumbs from the second-bottom shelf, before putting one cup inside another to save space. ‘Like she’s drowned and the outgoing tide has left its mark.’
Auntie Caroline kept washing and rinsing, holding a chipped plate mid-air, wondering what to do with it. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘She could do with some filling out.’ There was something calm about her bulk and her ways, but it was not genetic; her other sisters were a bit jumpy.
Later, Mary lay in bed, her feet stung with the cold. She missed the warmth of Joey’s feet, the weight of Joey’s arm on her shoulder to slow her thoughts down. The urge to sit up, to get up, was crushing, but the futility of where to go, and what to do when she got there, left her flat. Dying yet unable to die. Living for the kids. People had been so kind. Their condolences putty without the window. She longed for people to get drunk, to hear laughter, stupid jokes, not, ‘Sorry, sorry’. Sober normality was too much. She nodded off for a few seconds, wrangled with what Joey was saying and not remembering, because it made no sense. Her hand struggled for his in the bed beside her.
Milkmen passed the back window, softening the dark hours, sorting different doorsteps with clinking bottles; the pad of the boy’s running feet in the dark. Seconds, minutes, hours slipped the garrotte of time without respite. Morning broke into the house, creeping through the windows. The echo of workers’ feet hurry-scurrying on the streets was a relief because it meant she could finally give up wrestling sleep and roll out of bed.
For most of the day she sat on a hardback chair. Time slowed to sips of tea filling her mouth, to a length of tobacco, Embassy King Size. She avoided new arrivals, their puppy-dog eyes carrying sorrowful stares, their truncated conversations. Joey took up too much space in her mind to think of anything else. Their first kiss. The way her legs went all googly and she had laughed out loud.
‘You alright?’ Auntie Caroline asked.
Mary nodded – she was.
‘You want tea?’
She shook her head – maybe later.
Mary mustered enough energy and tact, and sprung the occasional lopsided smile, to show she was glad her sisters had come in and taken over the ever-growing list of things that needed to be done. Auntie Caroline brought tears and manful hugs. Auntie Ruth brought her well-mannered ways, her well-cut dark skirts, matching jackets, and a business brain well-suited to arranging a funeral. The other sisters, Teresa, Catherine, Phyllis, Ann, Maureen, Jane, Agnes, Louise and Rose, brought their husbands and children. Living room, kitchen and the three bedrooms were like a public playground with a fog of smoke, sweaty bodies, and endless jawing. In the evening, whisky was reserved for the men and vodka or wine for the women. Tongues were sharpened and let loose. Ally and Jo were plied with oodles of Coke and fizzy lemonade. They longed for days when their daddy would tell them they had drunk too much and under no circumstances could they have another glass; days when they did not have to wait in a queue for the toilet and heed the blithe chatter of grown women moaning about bursting all over the place.
Manny, Ruth’s husband, found Mary in her usual spot in the kitchen. ‘That’s the undertakers outside. They’ve brought your husband home, as you asked.’ His beard was an untidy grey. He got so excited by the gravity of what he was saying that words came flecked with saliva. ‘It’s a closed coffin,’ he added.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to see him. I want to hold him for one last time. I want him to know I was there for him.’
‘I don’t know if they’ll allow that.’ He searched for his wife to help him out.
Mary’s voice pinned him in place. ‘You don’t know. They let him get squashed like a bug under some big fucking beam. Nobody thought to look out for him, yet I’m to be protected from him. Get a fuckin’ life, Manny. Get a life. I want to see my husband. I want to be with my husband. And I don’t really care what you or anybody else thinks.’
‘Sorry,’ said Manny.
The undertaker hovering at the kitchen door cleared his throat, letting Manny squirm away to stand with his wife, who consoled him by patting him on the cuff of his sleeve.
‘Where do you want the coffin?’ The undertaker was younger than Mary, which threw her for a few seconds. But he was deferential, head bowed, holding a black top hat as if he had stepped into a Charles Dickens novel and she was Miss Havisham. Auntie Caroline stood lurking in the kitchen door, and behind her stood wee Charlie. The girls had been marched to their room.
Mary had not really thought about it. ‘In the living room, I suppose.’ She had been thinking of Joey as alive, not a mere problem of space.
The undertaker turned to go. She had been sitting too long. Her knees almost went from under her when she stood up. The way he gawked round the living room: mantelpiece to telly, to the shabby couch at the door; she could see he had already triangulated how much space they would need to park their charge and leave, and figuring how much wee extras could be added to the final reckoning. She brushed past Auntie Caroline and tapped his elbow, startling him.
‘I’ve changed my mind. I want you to put Joey in our bedroom.’
The young undertaker did not look at her but glanced at another man, dressed in the same garb, who stood viewing the living room and those in it with a proprietary eye from the hall. She took him to be the funeral director because the rainbow striations of his bulbous nose and the fine-lined cracks in the raspberry of his cheeks gave him the appearance of seniority. He wet his lips as if unused to speaking. His voice was a low, flat grumble. ‘That would be fine.’ He turned to go, leading the solemnities. Coins jangled in the younger undertaker’s trouser pocket as he hurried to catch up, making him seem more human.
Mary keeked through the venetian blinds to oversee them bringing Joey home. A black hearse from the Co-op was parked tight against the pavement, the hood angled down towards the phone box. The funeral director sprung the tailgate and it hung in the air, the dark wood of the coffin exposed, but instead of sliding it out, the younger undertaker’s head disappeared and he pulled out two wooden trestles. The older man stood guard at the hearse as the young undertaker followed the path and doubled back towards the house. Mary looked round, Auntie Caroline was loitering at her back with that pained and patient expression everyone had been adopting with her.
‘I’ve checked, I don’t know if there’ll be enough room in your bedroom for a coffin.’ This was Auntie Caroline’s way of saying it would be a bad idea.
‘We’ll make room,’ Mary said. ‘Even if I have to take the double bed out.’
Auntie Caroline nodded and patted her on the arm. ‘We’ll make do.’
‘But where will you sleep?’ Auntie Teresa said. She was sitting on the couch, her eldest boy, as bored-looking as a Pekingese dog, using her leg as a bolster to lean on. Charlie squatted on the arm of the couch, his wife’s hand on his knee, puffing Senior Service.
‘I’ll sleep in my room,’ said Mary.
‘With the coffin?’ asked Auntie Teresa.
‘No. Not with the coffin. In my bed,’ said Mary.
‘Teresa!’ Auntie Caroline said, cutting in.
‘No, it’s OK,’ Mary said. ‘I’m sick of being molly-coddled.’ She faced down her sisters’ concerned eyes.
‘Won’t you be scared?’ Charlie cupped his lit fag, hiding it between a nicotined thumb and the fan of his forefingers as he spoke.
‘Why would I be scared? We loved each other.’ A sob escaped her throat, making Charlie sniff and look away. ‘He didn’t hurt me when he was living. Why would he hurt me when he’s dead?’
A movement from outside caught Mary’s attention and made her inattentive to what was being said. Hugging her arms to her chest, her eyes rested for a moment on a snowdrop, which speared out of the ground underneath the privet hedge, its foliage shiny and new, sheltered from drifting wind and rain. The undertakers lifted the coffin and, with a slap on the frontrunner’s shoulder, were bringing him home. She darted towards the living room door, almost kicking over a mug half-filled with tea by the side of an armchair, and took a custodian position.
The younger undertaker carried the head of the coffin, high-stepping over the front step and into the house. It was more of a palaver reversing into the toilet with the coffin balanced on his shoulder and swinging back out into the living room, before the senior undertaker could make the right-hand turn in the hall. They had to make the same manoeuvre backing into John’s room. When they got the coffin into the master bedroom, the funeral director asked for a few moments to get things organised and clicked the bedroom door shut.
Mary waited outside the door for them to come out. They dipped their heads as they passed her in the hall, the briefest acknowledgement. Auntie Caroline stood behind her sister’s back, her presence offering support, but Mary held up her hand, a sign that she wanted to be alone with Joey. She shut the bedroom door firmly behind her.
The coffin was set down across two trestles and squeezed in between the wardrobe and the backboard of their bed. The lid was propped against the chest of drawers, reflected in the swing of the mirror, creating a shadow and cutting the light from the window in half. Joey brought with him the smell of lilies mixed with the scent of a dentist’s chair. But the undertakers had brought a stranger.
‘What have they done to you Joey, my Joey?’ she asked.
His head was the shape and colour of a dark mushroom and someone had lacquered and parted his hair in a middle-shed. His lips were pallid thin lines. His flesh melted away, his cheekbones more pronounced and higher than his forehead. The broken skull was working its way to the surface.
She held her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, Joey, Joey, what am I goin’ dae without you?’
Day 46
Mary sat in her usual spot in the kitchen, watching lunch, or whatever it was, being prepared. It might even have been dinner.
‘You’ve got to eat.’ Auntie Caroline plonked a mug of tea and a sandwich on the table in front of her, white bread cut into triangles, delicately balanced on a china saucer engraved with a hummingbird.
‘I’m no’ hungry.’ Mary mouthed a sip of the tea to placate Auntie Caroline and slid the plate a few inches away from her.
Auntie Caroline made a huffing noise and sat down opposite her sister. She reached for Mary’s packet of fags, nicked one, and lifted her lighter. The sandwich sat untouched between them.
‘The girls want to see their dad.’ Auntie Caroline studied the cooker in front of her as she spoke. ‘Jo thinks she’s old enough.’
‘Over my dead body.’ Mary tried to explain, ‘She’s got her whole life to be old enough.’
‘That’s what I told her.’ Auntie Caroline clawed the overflowing ashtray towards herself and knocked fag ash into its tarry base. ‘But she still wants to.’
‘What she wants and what she gets are two different things.’
‘Maybe. Maybe.’ Auntie Caroline juggled with words to fix on the right tone. ‘We should put the lid back onto the coffin so they can’t sneak in and get a look. I’ve already caught them at it a few times. Warned them, and their cousins. Kids will be kids.’
Mary’s eyes glittered like dull knives as she glared at some fixed space in front of her. ‘I’ve already told you, not until the boy gets to see his Da for the last time.’
‘And I’ve already told you, they won’t let John out. Ruth’s been on the phone countless number of times, and you know what she’s like. But they just won’t listen to rhyme nor reason.’
‘We’ll go and get him.’ Mary’s voice rose in agitation. ‘We’ll get a taxi. Me, you and—’ she gulped down the word ‘—Joey.’
‘It’s not a matter of transport. Rose and Mary Jane have got a car. They won’t let him out. They said he’s not well.’
‘Shite.’ The vehemence in Mary’s voice was a warning to tread carefully. ‘There’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘Aye, I know. He’s a good boy, but he has been seeing things. Doing things. And the doctor did say he would be able to come to the funeral.’
‘That’s very noble of him. The wee Hitler. Who does he think he is? I don’t want him at the funeral. I want him here beside me, beside his da, now.’
‘We’ll see what we can do.’ Auntie Caroline stubbed her fag out and stood up. ‘We’ve asked the priest to come up later to say the rosary for the repose of Joseph’s soul.’
Mary chortled smoke through her nose, coughing. ‘Oh, I’m sure Joey would love that. I’m sure he’ll be forever grateful.’
‘Mary, mind yourself.’ Caroline wandered through to the living room to check on the kids. One of the older boys had his head stuck in the curtains, standing guard, waiting to alert them to the arrival of the men of the cloth.
Canon Martin in his black suit and long gabardine coat shuffled so slowly up Dickens Avenue it was like watching a rock move. A younger priest with a sprig of dark curls, Father Malloy, accompanied his confessor.
A kitchen chair had been brought into the bedroom for Mary to sit on. The two priests brushed their way past mourners standing in the hallway and spilling into the living room. A space had been reserved for them beside the immediate family in the bedroom. As the clergy loomed closer, the noose of people tightening around the coffin loosened to make room.
Canon Martin knelt using the side of the bed as a prie-dieu to lean on. Father Malloy shadowed him. The older man’s gnarled hands were ungainly as they held the rosary beads. He tapped the crucifix against his forehead before beginning, calling the house to order with his opening prayer. Conversations ceased. ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.’ He made the sign of the cross. Eyes were guided upward towards Daft Rab’s house and the heaven beyond that. The keening see-saw sound of the rosary was intoned by the Canon, following its circular paths, and in the journey round the beads his voice grew younger and firmer.
Father Malloy helped the old man get to his feet when the fifth decade of the Rosary was finished. ‘I’ll be alright,’ he wheezed, holding more firmly onto the curate’s arm.
‘Best be off.’ Father Malloy’s youth, earthy voice and beaming smile filled the awkwardness between the ordained and the laity. He addressed his remark towards Mary, but she ignored him, sitting on the chair like a broken marionette, with her pale hands in front of her.
Mourners drifted away and laughter came from the living room. Kids’ feet thumped down the hall and squeals could be heard on the grass outside. A child was chastised, ‘You better behave yourself. I’m tellin’ you. This is your last chance.’
The two priests headed towards the front door, addressed by jubilant voices now that they were leaving.
The house emptied slowly. Mary kept her vigil on the hard seat beside the coffin. She barely registered the ebbing daylight and the growing darkness in the room. Thoughts chased round her head like charged particles in an endless circuit of newfound knowledge – there was no forever after, just endless regrets.
She welcomed being alone and the wind washing through gaps in shut windows. The yellow glow from the light bulb in the hall dappled her feet. The crumpled sheets, the carpet, the chest of drawers with its ill-matched two shades of lacquer, the wardrobe with all his clothes standing to attention, every little thing reminded her of Joey, except the thing that was lying in the coffin.
Auntie Caroline pushed open the door. ‘Were you talking to someone?’ She looked suspiciously round the room and back at her sister who said nothing and re-mained stationary. ‘The girls want you to say goodnight to them.’
Mary got to her feet, her bum numb, and legs drunk with sitting. She drifted after Auntie Caroline through to the girls’ room. Sheets and blankets were tucked up over Ally and Jo’s chins and they lay straight out and still as the spines of a book. She tiptoed along the passage between their beds. Kneeling, she flung her arm over the mound that was Jo, drinking in her warmth and the sweet but slightly musty smell of bedding. Pulling her eldest daughter roughly into her chest, she kissed her forehead. Jo stared up at her, long-faced. Then she tugged the sheets from her mum’s hands and turned her back. Mary hovered over her, anxious to explain, but said nothing. Her youngest daughter reacted differently. She clung to Mary’s neck, would not let go and stifled a sob. Mary covered her face with kisses.
Lily Poole Page 17