Where the Edge Is

by Gráinne Murphy

  Her own mother’s tea was a sudden ache of memory. Lemon-fragrant, drunk in silence. Her mother spoke less and less after they moved to Ireland, her speech replaced by sighs and soft smiles, shakes of the head.

  ‘How will Alina ever be truly Irish if we do not speak English at home?’ her father had scolded, and her mother nodded her agreement, left another part of herself behind. At university, Alina’s psychology module made her wonder if her mother ate to keep her mouth occupied, to stop the forbidden language from slipping out. Mai’s fear expanded alongside her waistline. She became afraid of the narrowness of the bus doorway, the heaving incline of the steps. She preferred to stay at home, she said. Where nobody would comment, she did not add.

  Her mother’s silence would be understanding, complicit, full of the knowledge that passed through blood. Some day she, too, might share that with a daughter, God willing. Inshallah. Her mind, long accustomed to the Irish way of invoking luck, brought forth her father’s word.

  ‘What are his beliefs, this young man of yours?’ her father had asked when she told them, shyly, that she had met someone.

  ‘He is a good man. We love each other,’ she answered. She burned at the memory of her pride at her own integration, her ability to look at the person instead of the accidental heritage of their birth. How quickly the heart reprogrammed the brain. Chemicals, she supposed.

  Caught up in her new love and her new life, she ignored the unquiet parts of her heart. She hugged the memory of Seán to her and thought that a love so clearly meant to be was not so different from a divine plan.

  ‘I do,’ she declared in front of them all and told herself that her words, her life, were hers to give.

  But clinging tight to the bus driver, Richie, she was lifted up and up, above the glass and the other people. She was lifted right out of the skin she tried to fit into, exposing her centre. Where, it seemed, Allah waited all along, unfolding like the paper hat hidden inside one of Annie’s Christmas crackers.

  The pain was too much. She sat up and eased herself out of bed.

  In the kitchen, she found Seán and his mother sitting over cups of tea, a fresh currant cake on the table between them.

  ‘Well, the dead arose and appeared to many,’ Annie said. ‘You didn’t think you’d be able to sleep at all, you said, and here you are six hours later. Didn’t I tell you?’

  What to do with such a statement? As with so much of her mother-in-law’s conversation, it was best to simply smile. To pretend she meant no harm.

  ‘How are you feeling, love?’ Seán asked, getting up to usher her over to the table. ‘I’m not long home, I didn’t want to go in and wake you.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Alina did not say she heard him come home half an hour ago. He was powerless before his mother’s ambushes. Conversation and cake, her weapons of choice. ‘Are they out? Did they get them out? The others?’

  Seán shook his head. ‘They tried to take a crane in, or a cherry picker, but the road wouldn’t hold.’

  ‘What are they doing now? They must be doing something.’

  ‘The news said something about moving rubble by hand. Nothing seems certain.’

  Alina sat down. She had slept and slept and all the time they were still in there. ‘You have to eat something, child,’ Annie said. ‘I’m after making a nice currant loaf for you. I popped another couple into the freezer, it was nearly empty. You’d have been living on ice soon.’

  Alina took the knife from the table and started to cut herself a slice of cake. Soft and warm from the oven, it went with the knife, leaving her with a slice that had a normal top but no end. She laid it carefully on a plate. It wasn’t a slice at all.

  ‘Let me.’ Annie took the knife from her and pointed the tip of it down at a forty-five-degree angle to cut a square so neat it might have appeared in a maths book. ‘There’s a knack to it,’ Annie said. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t need to, her slice of cake did it for her.

  ‘You’re not to listen to a word of that nonsense on the radio, the awful things people are saying about you—’ she continued.

  ‘Mam!’ Seán’s voice warned.

  ‘I’m not the one saying it,’ Annie’s tone was injured. ‘Haven’t I known Alina for all the years? Sure, she wouldn’t hurt a fly. That’s what I said to that reporter that called as well. “There isn’t a pick on her,” I told her. “Where would she hide a bomb?”’ Her laugh was too loud. ‘If you were brainwashed by one of them, wouldn’t we know it?’

  ‘Mam. Enough.’

  Because only brainwashing brought someone to her religion. No legitimate grievance could be admitted. That they created such a thought in her head was shocking. She who never believed that violence was the answer to anything! Within the space of a single day, her own family had put her on the opposite side of us-and-them. She was as Irish as they were. Until they decided otherwise. Because her family didn’t pick potatoes, because they didn’t live and die by this tiny-stoned land, because she bore no grudge to the East, she could have nothing more than formal citizenship.

  ‘I’m not the one saying those things,’ Annie said. ‘Everyone wants to get their spoke in, is all.’

  ‘Can you leave your spoke out of it, please? Alina has enough to think about at the moment.’

  ‘I’m only saying there’s a lot of crackpots out there. I don’t mean you, Alina love.’

  ‘I should phone my mother,’ Alina said. She stretched out a hand as if it was someone else’s and stroked Seán’s cheek. How deeply he believed he struggled to keep the peace. As if apologising behind everyone’s back was enough.

  ‘I phoned her earlier,’ Seán said.

  That was not easy for him, her mother’s deference had a way of sucking the natural easiness out of him. ‘Thank you.’

  How much simpler if those were the only two words available. If, for everything a person did or did not do, there was simply a thank you or nothing.

  In her bedroom, she dialled her mother’s number.

  ‘Mama?’

  ‘Alina.’ Her mother’s voice was warm and cool in just the right places.

  ‘How lucky we are,’ Mai said. ‘Baba was looking out for you.’

  ‘Have you been listening? Did you hear?’ For a moment she thought she might cry.

  ‘I turned it off. They will let anybody say any awful thing they want to, with no reason. I watch the shopping channel. There, they smile and dress nicely and say only good things about the world.’

  Alina tried again. ‘They’re saying—’

  ‘Just because they are saying it does not mean you need to listen,’ her mother said firmly.

  Mai prized certainty. It was her mission to create it where there was none, in her small orbit around the neighbourhood. Her faith in the ijma was unshaken. The consensus of the community was the principle Mai lived by, even in a place where that made her an object of suspicion. Her mother’s life was forever delineated by the expectations of others.

  Alina herself had longed for a world with infinite possibility. At university, finally, she found acceptance, or the convincing pretence of it. Everyone with their gay friend, their musician friend, their political activist friend, their foreign friend. The uniform of political correctness they wore as if it was individuality. She gave her opinion loudly, shared her history freely, before realising that she was only asked that they might claim her comments as their own understanding. She had presented her whole self for their skin-deep acceptance. Shown off, once again, for visiting teams. She nodded to descriptions of potholed streets as ‘downtown Beirut’ – so true! she laughed, swallowing the prick of betrayal in her throat. She joined in their outrage at the single-image portrayal of Ireland in English soap operas and American films – so unfair! so limited! she raged, thrilling at her inclusion.

  If things had remained that simple, if she were more grateful, might that have bought her peace?

  ‘The neighbours have all phoned to ask how you are,’ her mother said. ‘They are p
raying for those poor people.’

  ‘They are still in there, Mama.’

  ‘It is a terrible thing.’ Her mother paused for a moment. ‘But you, my daughter, did not die and that is something to be grateful for.’

  It was her mother’s way to be grateful. Each was given enough, if he looked hard enough. We must not be ungrateful for what fortune has given us because it has not filled the measure as full as we expected. That was Plutarch. And her father.

  ‘It could have been me,’ she said. The words shivered through her and she was grateful for her empty stomach.

  ‘It was not meant for you,’ her mother replied. ‘This was not your day.’

  Alina closed her eyes. So many times she explained to her mother that she had the expression the wrong way around. That here in Ireland to say that it wasn’t your day meant that you were unlucky. Yet her mother persisted in her own interpretation, every day lived was another day to be thankful for.

  ‘Will you come?’ Alina asked. She knew the size of the request. Mai did not like to be out of her own house, away from her things, her safety blankets. But even the thought of her mother nearby made Alina feel stronger. Annie was intimidated by Alina’s mother, by a silence she did not understand.

  ‘Of course.’ Alina heard the air sigh out of her mother as she sat down.

  ‘Can you bring my chest?’ Her mother had watched her as she put away the emblems of her former life, her engagement ring winking in the sunlight, and closed the lid. Such a small box, to carry a whole past.

  ‘Your father watches over you still,’ Mai said, by way of goodbye.

  * * *

  ‘Are you all right?’ Seán asked, when they lay in bed, tucked together in their familiar half-spoon.

  ‘I’m lucky,’ she said. Maybe she would convince him, help him to feel as she did now.

  ‘So very lucky,’ he agreed. His thumb traced her arm and grazed the side of her breast, almost by accident. ‘Are you too sore?’ he asked her.

  When she shook her head, he turned her over and began to kiss his way along her neck.

  ‘I asked my mother to bring my chest,’ she told him. ‘You know, when I stopped wearing it, I never said it was forever.’

  He didn’t reply but moved her onto her back.

  She thought about how wearing it made her feel separate, but in a good way. Pure, almost. Her family’s observance when so many others did not. These things might once again be good things to feel. These old thoughts might be good things to think. A secret between her and the prophet.

  ‘It feels like the right time—’

  ‘You don’t need to explain anything. It’s your decision, Alina, it always was. I’m happy with whatever choice you make, you know that.’

  ‘My hair will be for you alone, like it used to be,’ she said, stroking his back. She did not add that her thoughts would no longer be his.

  In the light from the window they moved slowly together, and she could see the hope on his face. The hope that had been written there for some months now, the bright wish that tonight might stretch out its arms to the future. That when those arms came back to them, they might cradle an infant.

  Let it be a girl.

  If they were to have the baby he wanted so badly, let it be a daughter to whom she might give the gift of secrets. The gift of silence inside her head, one sacred space in this unholy world.

  RICHIE

  Niall Tóibín came to wheel him to the interview room. He looked delighted with himself and Richie wondered if he volunteered for the job. Maybe he was always delighted with himself, some people carried on like that.

  ‘You’re not the first hero I’ve wheeled down here.’

  What was he lowering his voice for? Did he think some old woman passing by with her handbag high on her arm might run to the press? He had a sudden memory of his old mam stepping up the aisle to her usual spot for Sunday Mass.

  ‘The one piece of advice the big fella gave me… and I don’t mind telling you since it’s yourself…’

  Richie had no idea who the big fella might be or whether his advice was something that should be minded or avoided.

  ‘… is to look at the camera as if it was your dog,’ Niall finished. ‘And don’t be looking around too much, it makes you look shifty, but, sure, every cat on the street knows that.’

  By the time Niall pushed him down a corridor to the interview room, Richie’s head was spinning. What did Buddy have to do with anything? He ran his tongue over his lips. His mouth was dry as a piece of toast. He wondered if it was possible for all the moisture in his body to move to the palms of his hands. Anyone looking to shake his hand had better have a tissue handy.

  Alina was at the door already, with a man that must be her husband. He looked as Irish as Paddy’s pig. What did she say his name was? Did she tell him? He should remember or they’d think he was badly reared. His poor mam would die of shame.

  Anxious to avoid handshakes, Richie was only half-listening while Alina introduced her husband, in such a way that he still didn’t know the man’s name after all that. He clamped Richie’s shoulder and said something.

  After that, it was the interviewer, Nina. She seemed nice at the start. Then she asked about all that business at work. Richie’s tongue swelled – or maybe his mouth shrank, it was one of the two anyway – and words were hard to come by. He was relieved when the focus turned to Alina, although she seemed to have got a bit more into the whole religious bit since earlier. While she spoke, Richie realised with a shock that when the guards had brought up gear bags and agitation, they had been asking him about terrorism. He shivered. It was like the bad old days in the North.

  When Niall returned to wheel Richie back to his room, he could hardly remember a word that had been said. Maybe he had sat there like a mute, he panicked. But no. The hospital fella would have made a fuss if that was the case.

  ‘Ah, have it your own way, so.’ Niall was annoyed that Richie wouldn’t tell him anything.

  Let him join the queue.

  * * *

  ‘Are you sure I’m ready to go?’ Richie asked the nurse as she helped him with his shoes and socks.

  The stiffness had settled deep in his bones, reminding him of going camping as a boy. He used to wake at first light, cold and rigid as roadkill, his father dead to the world beside him, filling the tent with snoring and farts.

  ‘We wouldn’t let you out if we weren’t sure.’ She straightened up without so much as a hand on her back. Nurses were always fairly nimble, everyone knew. That’s why they were popular in the pornos.

  ‘It sounds like you two were the lucky ones,’ she continued, solemn with bad news. ‘The radio is saying that things are pretty serious, they won’t have them out tonight anyway.’

  ‘Christ.’

  The miserable string of an orderly appeared to wheel Richie to the door. Niall must really have the hump. On ER, they would only release patients to the care of a loved one – there were often grateful tears involved – but the orderly deposited Richie in the foyer next to a bright yellow wall-mounted telephone.

  ‘Pick it up, it connects you to a taxi company,’ he said. ‘Can you sit in one of those chairs by the wall? I need to get this one back to the ward.’

  Richie watched him amble back down the corridor, pausing to flick the hair out of his eyes before turning the corner to the lifts.

  The taxi driver was all chat, none of it bright.

  ‘Desperate, isn’t it? Desperate altogether, hah?’ he shouted into the rear-view mirror, bobbing his head up and down to catch Richie’s eye in between the felt branches of the swinging air freshener.

  Keep the head down, Richie-boy, don’t give him a good look. Jesus, would he ever shut his trap?

  The fake pine smell turned his stomach and he opened a window. They must give them out in taxi-driver school, instead of a cert. Congratulations, may your taxi always smell fresh. A laugh bubbled up from his throat. Christ. Maybe those painkillers were stronger than h
e thought.

  He watched out the window as they left the city behind. Twenty minutes or so and he would be in the comfort of his own home. A hot shower and a cold beer were almost within touching distance. They said no drink, but, sure, fuck it, he had nowhere he had to be.

  He undressed and rid himself of the borrowed scrubs.

  Straight into the bin with them, don’t mind the wash basket, Richie-boy.

  The shower was awkward. They told him to put a stool in there, to take the weight off his knee while it healed, but he forgot until he was already in. An old shampoo bottle of Sandra’s threw him. The brain was a powerful thing, all the same. Like those tablets. Mighty little yokes, they were. He was flying. He could run a mile. He could climb Croagh Patrick, naked as a jay-bird. Bare feet and all.

  It took him a while to get downstairs again, a slow one-two on each step with the crutches. The house was against him, that’s what it was. The dark, narrow hallway tightened his throat. The echo of his mam in the kitchen, griping that the milk was sour. How could it be sour, he had it for his breakfast. Was that only this morning? Jesus, fuck. It was against him, though, that was the long and short of it. The holy all of it. Maybe that was enough painkillers for the moment. He should stick to the soft stuff, beer and the likes.

  The silence was a killer. He turned on the telly. An hour and nothing. Only the clench of his belly every time an ad break ended, waiting to see his own face and some headline. Some breaking news. Some something.

  It was a relief when it came, like finally vomiting out a bad Indian.

  ‘Attempts earlier this evening to move the rubble by crane only worsened the situation as the road collapsed further around the crash site. The Gardaí and fire services are working with experts on site trying to ascertain the best way to proceed with the rescue attempt. Six passengers remain on board and they have been identified as…’

  Richie watched the faces on the screen. With the travel cards these days, most people just walked past him to the metre. But he recognised them, all the same. There was the teacher who wore the same thick tights and carried the same big handbag no matter the weather. The woman who looked like she had been out on the tear. The boy with the headphones surgically attached to his ears. Tony, who wore his tracksuit pants so tight that Richie could nearly tell if he was hanging symmetrical. The little Down’s girl, Orla, whose mother had come to talk to the drivers when her daughter was learning to use the buses. She had asked them all to look out for her. To keep a special eye out for our special girl, she had said. Hard words to forget. The older gentleman, who wore an old-fashioned hat, the kind Humphrey Bogart used to wear. Looking at him now, Richie wondered, as he always did, if someone had once told the man he looked good in a hat. Alina, of course. Her big eyes in the picture looked gentle – the half-madness was only recent, so. His own face was there too.