by Claire Allan
Anna smiled, and went back to her prayers. I listened, comforted by the rhythm of the Rosary and the slow clacking of her beads. A candle was burning on the windowsill, offering up a silent “intention” for my mother.
I buttered my toast and sat down, waiting for Anna to finish so that we could make whatever plans necessary for the day ahead.
“Sorry, love,” she said when she was done, “I should have said – I’ve phoned the hospital and your mother has made it through the night.”
I instantly felt like a complete fecking eejit that I hadn’t asked before stuffing my face with buttery toast and hot tea. Pushing aside the remainder of the slice, even though the butter had melted into the bread just how I liked it, I sat upright.
“We can head to the hospital as soon as you want,” I said. “I’d just like to call and see Maggie first.” I cradled my arms around my body instinctively. I hadn’t been apart from her for so long before and it felt as if a part of me was missing.
“Of course, darling, but I want to let your dad and Joe get back for some sleep as soon as possible. They’ve been there all night.”
I nodded and set about getting ready for the day.
****
I tried to remind myself that Jacqueline had been quite nice yesterday after all and that chances were she would be minding Maggie a lot for me while my mother battled for her life and I had to let all the past hurt and insecurity go.
Anna rang the doorbell and Odhran ran as fast as his chubby legs could carry him down the hall, grappling with the key in the door like an overexcited puppy.
“Hello, hello, hiya, hiya!” he chimed, jumping up and down.
“Odhran, calm down,” I heard Jacqueline chide as she walked towards the door, my baby in her arms, and let us in.
Odhran immediately made a break for freedom towards the street. I can’t really say that I blamed him.
For a second I stood and watched, amazed that he could run so fast before something clicked in me that perhaps the middle of the street was not the safest place for a toddler. I tore after him, grabbing him to me and turned to find Jacqueline with her hand over her mouth, a look of terror on her face. Anna lifted Maggie from her which I figured was wise, given that to even the most casual of observers, it looked as though Jacqueline was about ten seconds away from dropping my child square on her head.
“You wee fecker!” she squealed at her son, her face red with a mixture of relief and fury.
It seemed her perfect facade was falling by the minute.
When we had calmed down, poured a cup of tea and ensured Odhran was in a safe place with his Thomas the Tank Engine toys, Jacqueline apologised for her outburst.
“You know I wouldn’t normally use language like that. I’m just a little tired and no, Aoife, that’s nothing to do with your little lady. She has been a dream. Makes me eager to meet this little one.” She rubbed her tummy.
I held Maggie close to me, eager to lap up the compliments. For once in my life I’d done something worthy of my sister-in-law’s approval.
“I suppose you should be going,” Jacqueline said, looking at the kitchen clock.
“You’re right,” I said, “but if Anna doesn’t mind, we’ll just have a quick look at that nursery of yours first to see what kind of space I’ll be working with.”
Jacqueline smiled, squeezed my hand and thanked me. “This means a lot, Aoife. You always make such a good job of things.”
*****
Mum had a bit more colour in her cheeks when we reached the hospital. Daddy on the other hand looked pale and exhausted and Joe wasn’t far behind.
“I’ll run youse both home,” Anna said. “I don’t think you’re in a fit state to drive and between Sheila and Aoife we’ve had enough McLaughlins in hospital for one week.”
Too tired to argue they followed her and left me alone with my mother, her eyes still closed, painkilling medicine and saline running into her and God knows what running out. Her hair was a mess, matted to her head and the pillow, and I thought how she would hate it. This was a woman who never missed her Saturday morning blow-dry and set for love nor money. I reached into my bag and took out my own hairbrush, before standing at the top of my mother’s bed and slowly dragging it through her hair just as she had done for me when I was little.
Now I remembered all those mornings where we had our battles of wills – me demanding she leave me alone and I liked the knots in my hair, and her saying I would look like a scarecrow going out of the house like that. When we had exhausted our shouting she would spray a mix of conditioner and water in my tangled auburn fizz and as gently as possible pull the comb through, singing the songs of Connie Francis as she went. It would take all of “Lipstick on your Collar” and half of “Stupid Cupid” before I was free to go.
As I stroked her hair a memory came back to me. I remembered the time when she only thought I was asleep. I was lying on the sofa, off school with measles, as she talked to her friend – stroking my hair as she did.
“I would hate it if anything happened to her,” she had said. “I couldn’t be without her for the world.”
I knew what she meant.
“She’s a fighter, you know,” a short, dumpy nurse said to me as she came to check all the tubes and wires.
“Stubborn as a mule,” I nodded, realising for the first time that I wanted that bloody stubbornness to work in her favour.
“She’s doing very well, love. Don’t give up hope. Where there is life there is always hope.”
“Thank you,” I said and continued brushing, soothing out the knots, straightening the gold and grey.
When Anna arrived back I had finished. I was sitting holding my mother’s hand and staring out the window.
“You okay, pet?” she asked.
“Grand. Just thinking a lot.”
“I know what you mean,” she said, sitting down beside me.
“Have we been really horrible to her all these years?” I asked, not looking at her.
“Probably a wee bit,” Anna said. “But listen here, Aoife, just because your mother is ill that doesn’t mean she’s suddenly a saint. She’s a hard woman to live with and she doesn’t always show herself in the best light, but I’d like to think beneath it all her heart is in the right place.”
I looked at her, thinking of her choice of words. “I bloody hope so after all this,” I laughed in spite of myself.
Anna smiled. “You know what I mean, cheeky. Maybe this is the wake-up call we all need to put things in perspective. We’ll get this all sorted out once and for all.”
What neither of us said was that we hoped we would get the chance.
******
My mother opened her eyes the following day. She looked around the room, disorientated and unsure of herself, and reached a hand up to my face. I kissed her hand, and she pushed my hair behind my ears.
“That’s better,” she said, before wincing with the pain.
She always had preferred my hair behind my ears and if I’m honest with myself it did look better that way.
She looked around again at four pairs of expectant, red and tired eyes and said:
“Jacqueline, where’s Odhran?”
I stepped back from the bedside, heart breaking, while she chattered to the people she loved most in the whole world.
*****
We drove home in silence. If I’m honest a part of me – just a small part, mind – hated my mother more in that moment than I ever had. I had spent two days wailing, praying, being away from my child, and did she care? Did she fuck! Why I thought she would change – that there would be some deathbed epiphany was beyond me.
“She’s not herself,” Anna said, staring forward.
“Oh yes, she bloody well is,” I muttered and stared back out the window.
We continued our journey, saying nothing.
When we got home I carried Maggie upstairs. She was fussing and squirming – annoyed at me for leaving her for a couple of days and for br
inging her to this strange country again where she wasn’t the absolute centre of attention.
“Come on, baby! Be good for Mummy.”
I jiggled her, holding her close, waiting for her to latch on to me and relieve my aching boobs and realise she still loved me, but she arched her back and screamed.
“Oh for fuck sake,” I said – a little too loudly – and laid her in her cot and let her scream while I cried my eyes out.
By the time I lifted her to my breast again, her face was as red as mine, her eyes as sad as mine and I continued to cry as I latched her on and she fed. As her eyes grew sleepy, the guilt kicked in. I had let her down – but then again was it any wonder? I didn’t know how to be a mother. No one had ever shown me.
When she was fed and winded, I lay down beside her on the floral duvet and closed my eyes. I was just drifting off to sleep when my phone beeped to life.
“Hi, Aoife. Tom here. Beth gave me ur number. Hope ur mum is ok? Take care. x.”
I realised I hadn’t even thought of Tom, or Jake, in the last few days but now that his name was there in front of me I felt a pang. It confused me. I didn’t know him, I reminded myself. We had only met a couple of times, but there was something about him which made me feel comfortable sharing my secrets with him.
I lifted the phone and dialled his number.
“Hey there,” he said and I found myself smiling. “How are you, Aoife?”
“Okay,” I fibbed, my voice wobbling. God, he really was going to think I was a complete lunatic.
“Really?” he asked.
“No,” I stuttered.
“Is it your mum?” he asked, full of concern, and I started to sob.
“Oh I’m sorry, Aoife, I’m so sorry. If there is anything I can do. Flowers for the service, anything?”
“She’s not dead,” I stuttered. “She’s just a bitch!”
There was a few seconds’ pause and I could hear him take a deep breath. “Right, okay. Well, I’m glad she’s not dead but I’m sorry she’s a bitch. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“It’s enough that you listen to me,” I sniffed.
“Aoife, I will always be here to listen to you. Us two hopeless cases have to stick together.”
“I don’t think you are a hopeless case, Tom,” I smiled. “You, Mr Successful Businessman in your fancy London shop.”
“Right, is that coming from Ms Successful Businesswoman with her fancy London shop and a gorgeous baby girl?”
“Point well made,” I smiled. “I’ll stop feeling sorry for myself if you stop referring to us both as hopeless cases.”
“Promise,” Tom said and I could hear his smile. “You are a very strong person, Aoife. I know that about you. You will get through this, and when you get back I’ll take you out to dinner to celebrate.”
“I would like that very much,” I smiled and we said our goodbyes.
*****
When I woke from my sleep – to the sound of Maggie crying in my ear – I saw that it was six forty-five and time for hospital visiting. I would have to make the effort. Even though I didn’t want to. My mother would, no doubt, not even care if we made the effort. Brushing my hair, pushing all the loose tendrils behind my ears, I sighed. Then I dressed Maggie in something suitably prim and proper that I knew her granny would like. I had to put my anger behind me because I had learned over the past few days that even if she drove me to distraction I would be lost in my own way without her.
She was my mammy. Complete fecking bitch that she was, she was still my mammy.
When we arrived at the hospital, my mother looked just as small, just as weak, but at least now her eyes were open and, although tired, she made an effort to talk to me.
“Aoife,” she said, looking at the bundle of pink in my arms, “you’ve brought the baby, I see. So you thought I was going to die too, did you?”
I wanted to assure her that no, I was always completely sure she was going to recover but that would be a lie that I just couldn’t keep up with. My heart – never mind hers – had been ripped out the last few days, causing me to think of everything in my life and reassess it.
“Yes, Mum,” I said, stepping forward, “I thought you were going to die.”
My mother looked aghast.
“You shouldn’t upset her,” a well-meaning but fearsome nurse said and it took me a moment to realise that she was talking to me.
I looked at my mother, saw her clutching her chest, and saw her crying.
“You all thought I was going to die. You wanted me to die!” she called to me, pointing a bony finger at me.
“No. No, I didn’t,” I croaked. “How can you say that? How dare you say that?” My voice grew angrier.
“You’ve never cared, Aoife,” my mother said through her tears and the nurse took me by the arm and led me out of the room.
“We can’t get your mother upset, dear. Not in her condition.”
I looked down at my daughter, asleep in her sling. I thought of the last two months and every damn thing I had been through and I wondered who cared about whether or not I was upset? Nobody gave a damn. How could my mother think that?
I turned and walked out of the ward, down in the lift, out into the fresh air and gulped lungfuls of it down as my heart thumped in my chest. How could she ever think that? I looked up and saw Joe walking towards me, a broad smile across his face.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” he chimed, the worry lines smoothed on his brow. His mammy was going to be all right. His world was back to how it should be.
I shrugged, trying to smile but grimacing instead.
“Aoife, what’s wrong? Is Mum okay? Jesus, tell me she’s okay . . .”
The colour drained from his face and I reached to steady him.
“She’s fine, Joe. Don’t worry. Back to herself.”
“Thank God for that,” he said, sitting down on the bench close to the door. “So what’s wrong then?”
“I caused this, didn’t I? This stress. I made her sick.”
He shook his head. “You’re being daft.”
“Am I? Seems Mum thinks I’m the cause of everything that went wrong with this family ever. I know I’ve made mistakes, Joe. I’m not perfect – and I’m not saying Maggie was a mistake either before you start getting notions on you.”
He shook his head. “I never said that.”
“But I did handle this whole thing wrong, and I’ve apologised for it. I want to make amends. I’ve been trying to make amends. I don’t want Mum to keep hating me. She drives me mad but when I thought she was dying . . .” My voice wavered. “I just wish she could like me – accept me even – for who I am.”
He stood up and hugged me, awkwardly admittedly as he tried not to squish Maggie.
“You didn’t make her sick, Aoife. She’s high maintenance. She always has been. And trust me, with a wife like Jacqueline I know high maintenance when I see it. She didn’t have a heart attack because you had a baby. She has spent her whole life getting tied up in knots over stupid little things, so she was always going to be a candidate for something like this.”
I was astounded. I couldn’t believe he had come out with these verdicts on his wife and his mammy. But then I just sighed, enjoying the hug from my big brother.
“Look, Aoife, go back to Anna’s. Spend some time with your daughter. Have a sleep if she will let you. All this will seem easier to deal with when you’re rested.”
I nodded and headed back to Anna’s house where I went to bed even though it had only just gone eight.
******
The following day I got up, feeling rested, and headed to the hospital again with Maggie. As we arrived I looked in the door to her ward and saw her sleeping. There were no flowers in her room, and just a couple of cards. She looked small and lonely and I thought how scary it must have been to feel as if her life was coming to an end.
I had been standing there for about five minutes when my father walked through the doors at the end of th
e corridor, carrying a cup of coffee. He looked older too. “Fair shook” as my granny would have said.
“Is she still sleeping?” he asked, and I nodded.
“Good, she needs her rest.”
“So do you, Daddy. You need to keep your strength up.”
“Aye, Aoife. You are probably right, darling.”
He sat down on the low chairs at the end of the corridor and gestured at me to join him. “Might as well stay out here while she’s sleeping. The heat in there would knock you out.”
We sat for a few moments in companionable silence before I started to speak. “Daddy, what happened? I know Mum had a heart attack, but what actually happened?”
He sighed. “I had gone for a walk, darling. Your mum was doing her ironing, you know what she’s like. I don’t know what happened exactly, I just know when I came back she was sitting on the floor against the door, the colour of death. Her skin was clammy. Aoife, she looked fierce. She was clutching her chest, she couldn’t even speak. I thought I was losing her.” His eyes misted over and I squeezed his hand.
“I don’t know how long she was there. I dread to think what she was going through – how scared she was. I never want to see her go through that again.”
I squeezed his hand tighter. “Poor mum,” I said, a certain resolve building inside me.
******
When my mother woke I was holding her hand. She looked at me, a little confused, as I kissed her cheek. It felt alien to be so close to her, but I wanted to let her know that despite her very best efforts I did care about her.
“Yes, Mum,” I started, “I thought you were going to die and it scared me. I love you. I don’t want to lose you. I want to make whatever is wrong with us right and I think we need to start again now.”
I stood up and took Maggie from my father’s arms and laid her in the crook of my mother’s arm. Maggie cuddled in as if that crook was made to hold babies. My mum stared at me in silence for a moment, then looked at Maggie and back at me.