by Colum McCann
* * *
Ofeelia was very quiet in solitary today. Often wondered why I never saw more of her around town, her being a fine thing and all. By all accounts, so say the nurses, her Da had a fierce battle with the board of education to keep her at home. Just imagine that. Didn’t even have a debs dance or anything. A bit like myself I suppose, since I only did the Inter and didn’t get a chance to dance with the old dickie bow on. Living in that caboose she probably never even had a chance to see any new films either. Christ. That’s not living.
The nurses were saying that her Da taught her the weirdest bloody stuff, him always up in arms about chemicals in the air and the peat bogs and all that other stuff they talk about. He was a friend of Logan’s and the greenies. Seems to me you have to be pretty bloody rich before you start talking about all that stuff. You can see them there on the TV, protesting the whales and the dolphins and all. There’s some graffiti in the women’s toilet that says NUKE THE GAY WHALES, which is pretty damn funny when you think about it.
* * *
She has the greenest eyes I ever saw. I’ll say that much for her. And quoting some strange bloody poetry too when she’s down there in solitary. All about these turtles and stuff. Doctor Garlic went to take her out today but she threw another nasty one. It was back into the white room for her, a shove in the back from Doctor G. That fella’s a screamer if ever I saw one. He shouldn’t be treating the patients like that, that’s all I have to say.
* * *
She’s a headcase, that one. Acting nice as could be for the last two days and back in the dorm, she is. Slopping out the stalls and who rolls in but herself. Oops, I say, it’s closed for a minute or two. Down she leans and, straight in the eyes, asks me if I could buy her a few bottles of syrup down at the shops, then slips me a fiver. Can I trust ya? she says, sounding normal as could be, even though they slapped a few of the yellow boys down her gob earlier on. Dressing gown hanging down awful low again. Barney would have had it right, but I never told him. Up she stands, with a bit of a wink and down the corridor until Dolores finds her and guides her back to the dorm by the elbow, awful gentle like.
So I bought the syrup, why not. Cost me an extra eighty-six pence. Went in, when they were all at dinner, and slipped the bottles under her bed. Didn’t say a word to Barney. He’d be slagging me something fierce. Took to calling me Hamlet for some reason when I said she wasn’t half-bad-looking. That bastard is always in the storeroom pulling his plum anyway.
There I was, doing a number on the corridors at about four in the morning, and the night nurses must have been sleeping or else she’s quiet as a fucking mouse. You’re a savior, she says to me, and slips four pink flowers across the floor. Syrup all over the front of her dressing gown. The flowers got a bit wet on account of the mop water, but I dried them out in the flat later on and put them in a jar. Anyway, I’ve a funny feeling she’s not half-mad at all. Asked me did I know where the caboose was. I said yeah, course I do. Then before she went waltzing back down the corridor she asked me to take some photos of the bloody thing for her. To hang above her bed because she’s homesick. Christ.
* * *
At the bloody sugar she was again tonight. And splatters of syrup all over her dressing gown. Georgie’s back, awful quiet, and she isn’t talking to a soul.
* * *
Those mining boys have the life of it up there. Two BMWs down by the gate. Barney says that the only difference between a cactus and a Beemer is that one has the pricks on the outside. He’s a funny bastard sometimes. But I wouldn’t say no if they put one out the front door for me, that’s for sure. Dublin license plates on them. Sitting outside the caboose, shiny as could be. They hired McLaverty and three of his fucking crew to make the tarmacadam road up from the main one, over the hills and down into the valley there. It’s a job all right, but it’s not mine. Still and all McLaverty said they’ll be hiring if things prove to be going all right.
There’s ructions in the Council. Johnnie Logan even said the hills are holy and they should take their mining company back to Ballyfermot and dig up a few horse bones for the knackers up there. That fella has a mouth on him for a politician. Still and all there’s no job like a job that pays, that’s what I say.
Got to thinking about old Ofeelia when I was up there snapping away. Bloody photos’d break her heart, even if she is a touch on the mad side. No flowers or anything. Anyway this security bloke comes out and asks me if I’m from the newspaper, then tells me not to be taking photos, that’s illegal. I’m not about to lose the chance of working with them, so right there I opened the back of the camera, ripped out the film and said there ya go, not a bit of harm done. Better all the way round that way. Old Ofeelia had a bit of a fit when I whispered to her as they were all traipsing out of the dining room, but that’s life isn’t it? She left me alone with the cleaning tonight, but I’ll be damned if there wasn’t another boatload of sugar in her pockets and even some of it stuffed down those long blue socks.
* * *
There’s a new magazine out that has all sorts of stuff about the films. There I was looking at a picture of Daniel Day Lewis in his Mohican rigout and who walks in but Dolores in her nursing whites, giving me all sorts of shit for not doing my job right. Slaps the magazine right out of my hands. Look who’s talking, I wanted to say. In there in the kitchen nattering about the patients all night long. And sleeping on the job too. Saw her later on in the kitchen with the other nurses, slobbering all over the magazine. They all think that Day Lewis fella is gorgeous. I’ll grow my hair long, get a number done on my teeth, and get a job in Hollywood myself. Watch out boys, here come Marty Lyons with his hatchet flying.
Anyway, Ofeelia came waltzing down the corridors when I was mopping at half past four and said to me, Some night let’s go for a walk outside, you and me, for a breath of fresh air. Didn’t say a thing, just kept on mopping. She’s fucking bonkers if she thinks I’m going to go for a stroll with her. She asked me for more syrup too, but I didn’t say a thing. I was thinking of asking her for that eighty-six pence, but I didn’t.
* * *
Barney left in his application with the mining boys today. Looking for a man to do the JCB, he said. Told them he worked for the County Council for seven bloody years before he went to the bin. So up I go myself to fill one in too. Place is fierce nice inside—done it up awful posh, expensive carpet and all that lark. Fax machines ringing like bloody Wall Street or something. They fixed the hole in the roof where the telescope used to be. Ah well, that’s progress. Three-piece asked me if I’d ever done the bulldozer thing before, so I told him the truth. Told me, natural as could be, that he already has a few men with experience but he’ll keep me on file. Bastard like that needs a lobotomy if he thinks Barney is telling the truth. That’s what you get, though. Doors slammed in your mush when you do it honest.
Georgie and Ofeelia were bulling today when they couldn’t go for a walk in the rain. I got in at five o’clock and there they were, in the dining room, sitting away from everyone, scowling like the clappers. Ofeelia had a fucking field of sugar in her pockets, you’d swear she’d been pulling beets all day. Georgie was rocking like a madwoman. Seems they’re pals now. Maybe Ofeelia’s shooting the white stuff, who knows around this bloody place. Both of them whispering and pointing the finger at me, of all people. Then they started laughing. One thing’s for sure, Barney better stop with this Hamlet shite or I’ll rip his head off and leave a long slimy one down his throat. He better be half decent to me or I’ll up and tell the mining company, not a bother on me, and that’s the fucking truth.
This place is driving me around the bend. Geraldine McCabe was slapped in the solitary after swallowing her fucking thermometer. Una Harrison’s parents left her a box of Milk Tray after six o’clock visit and Maggie the Moaner ate them up. All because the lady loves Milk Tray, I suppose. Mary Marshall left another jam rag in the toilet tank. Barney left it for me to clean up, the lazy pillock.
* * *
>
Two weeks now she’s been here and she’s awful nice. I don’t think she’s as mad as half the bloody people in the country. She must be a cute hoor to be able to slip past the nurses at night. Down she comes and sits near where I’m working whispering about this that and the other, the price of butter, whatever you want. One night she’s talking about things a little wacky, like how the universe is expanding and some such shite about gravity and stuff. Then she’s just staring away at the wall. The next she’s on about the flowers down by the pond, straight and narrow as could be, a little bit of a twitch in the lip but that’s all. It must be said that there’s a little bit of a tinkle in the trousers every now and then, what with her in that dressing gown with the buttons open and that bit of nipple looking like a crater on the moon. She’s got these awful big lips. Very sexy that in a woman. And those rhododendrons don’t look too bad. A man could go blind afterward. I’m surprised Barney doesn’t wear glasses after what he does in the stock room.
We’ve started taking to walks every now and then, me and Ofeelia. Nothing happens, just walking down around the grounds, but the Barney is like a fucking tape recorder. Hey, Hamlet, did you go for your midnight snack? D’ya think she could suck a golf ball through a fifty foot hose on a windy Friday? I swear that bastard’s looking for a punch, but he’s a big one. Might have to take my breakfast and lunch with me. He’ll be off and about soon enough working with the suits up there at the mining company, flinging his bulldozer around. Still and all, he’s probably right about me getting booted if they find me out walking in the grounds with Ofeelia. Not very clever, he says, even for you. All we do is go out the back door with my key, take our shoes off when we go across the gravel, go down to the flower beds, and she looks at them. Every now and then she picks one and sticks it in her hair.
Better be careful, but she asked me to take her along towards the caboose tomorrow night. I told her that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. She says why. I’m not into telling her about the churners and all, but I tell her a little about how I didn’t get the bulldozer job. She says she knew about the dozers and that’s all right she just wants to see it. Goes on about the homesick lark again, and something weird about her driving the caboose through the universe with her old man. That’s madness if you ask me. Seeing how it’s propped up on cement blocks, I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. But I said alright, maybe we’ll take a wander up there one night but we better not get caught or it’s my arse on a string. Then she winks at me and asks me not to tell a soul, those flowers bobbing away. She’s not too pally with Georgie anymore for some reason and says she doesn’t like Barney at all. Was awful happy when I told her he was quitting, but I didn’t tell her what job he was taking. She’s had enough shite thrown at her these last few weeks.
By all accounts they’re going looney trying to get her to go to the dentist. She opened up her gob and showed me a huge hole in the back of her mouth where the molars should be. That’s from eating too much sugar I says, and she starts laughing like a bloody hyena. Says she tucks the yellow boys in there with her tongue when the doctors give them to her. Hides them away. She’ll be fucked if they’re going to dope her up to the gills. She’s not thick, Ofeelia. Bet she saw that in a movie somewhere. Tom bloody Cruise in the stars again maybe.
* * *
Fucking Dolores and her hawk eyes. Out we were in the corridors talking about taking our stroll and along she comes, in her whites, and reams me out for talking with the patients. Ofeelia goes slinking back to the dorm, a look as long as the Shannon on her mush. Dolores says she’s going to tell the big boys if I ever do something like that again. Every day she’s Miss Up-your-Arse about every fucking thing, clean the floors, wash the sinks, the storeroom needs bloody cleaning. Sometimes I have the urge to tell her about Barney wanking in there but what’s the point. The fucker’s leaving in a few days to work on that road for the mining boys and before you know it he’ll be wearing a Louis Copeland and driving a Beemer. Phoned them myself again today but they said employment’s on hold for now. Some fucking good that does me.
Sometimes I think about Ofeelia and maybe getting a kiss or two one night. If she doesn’t mind the teeth and all. I’ve been thinking about getting braces one of these days. I’ll tell the dentist that story about Ofeelia and the yellow boys. That’ll crack the bastard up. Maybe he’ll give me a discount.
* * *
Trial run, she called it. Thank God Dolores had a day off. And Barney is finished, a couple of days off to get ready for the job he says. I said no at first. It’s getting a bit dicey. But she hands me one of those flowers again and a man can’t refuse that, can he.
Out we slipped at half past two and it’s one hell of a fucking hike up to the caboose, around and down by Martin’s place, then up the road where Barney’s JCB will be doing the trick. Wind blowing in from the sea and all. Had to give her my coat and up she comes and pecks me on the cheek, telling me I’m awful sweet. Like sugar, I say, and she laughs. We scooted around the side of the barbed wire and there was a light in the window behind the curtains. Sat ourselves down in the heather on the hillside. Security man probably doing the same thing Barney gets up to.
Got a bit of a tear in her eye even when she looked at the place, Ofeelia did. Talking about the flower beds and all. Used to be there wasn’t a piece of machinery in sight, only that telescope poking out of the roof. Sometimes she’d play hide-and-seek with her mother under the caboose. Got very fucking strange at one point, though, and started saying things from the Bible, all messed around. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for I have the biggest fucking JCBs in the valley. Just like that, her lip twitching. But then she says sorry, I’m just upset, and started talking normal again, reaching up for the flowers going berserk on her head.
Found out about the driving through the universe. Seems her Da used to play a game or two where they’d sit on the bloody roof and pretend they were driving the carriage through the stars. Weird that. They’d pretend they were train drivers just scooting around the sky.
Awful clever about the names of things though, she is. Told her all I knew was the Plough but she had a list as long as your bloody arm. There’s one called Betelgeuse and I knew that from the film. But there’s others you couldn’t pronounce even if you went to university. Seems her old dear would get a bit upset when her father got rude, parked the caboose in O’Ryan’s groin or through the legs of the Gemini sisters. But most of all they just had fun, she said, pretending they were driving, blowing the horn as they drove past Mars. Had me cracking up, she did, all that talk about stars. O’Ryan’s the bloke with the big sword. And Venus is the one for love, she said. And it’s a grand old bright one too.
We were going to do a bit of the driving game ourselves there on the hillside, but I looked at my bloody watch and it was almost four and we had to run back to the bin like the clappers. Was hankering for a bit of slap bang wallop but there was no time at all. She bummed a cigarette off me before she went back to the dorm, but I’m going to have to give those fucking things up because I was wheezing like a horse after running and then scrubbing the place down. Strange that, the way she said it was a trial run. I’ll be fucked if I’m going back there. Simple as that. And I’m not getting any more syrup either, even though she asked for four bottles and gave me a tenner. Seems she’s back in with Georgie because she said she’d be coming for the stroll too. I said no fucking way, count me out of this lark, I’ll be scrubbing the floors, no ifs, ands, or buts, Georgie girl’s as mad as a fucking hatter.
* * *
Johnnie Logan’s on about the miners again. There he is, his photo plastered all over the newspapers. Says the land belonged to others before it was ours, now we’re giving it away again. Can’t see much sense in that since there’s no Brits running around these parts these days. Still and all he’s talking like the clappers about the empire and multi-something companies and all that stuff. Johnnie Boy should have a go at Hol
lywood.
I was sitting in the town square listening to him run his mouth off and thinking about old Ofeelia and the way she’d take a flying trip on the damn thing. That must have been a sight. Then I got to thinking that maybe Logan is right. Maybe they should fuck off back to Ballyfermot and leave our mountains alone. Then again if they gave me a job I’d kick the living daylights out of Logan and never vote for the pillock again. Told Ofeelia that I’d make one more trip up there with her if Georgie didn’t come along. She says ah go on, but I said no way José. She was biting away at her lip for a while, but then just gave me a goozer and said okay, no Georgie. This time she gave me one quick smack on the lips. Boys oh boys talk about the rise of the empire. Johnnie Logan would have said a thing or two if he’d seen my trousers.
* * *
All settled so. Ofeelia wants me to take a wire cutters, a hammer, and a screwdriver from the storeroom. Says she just wants to go up and touch the caboose again. Just get through the barbed wire and touch the damn thing with her fingers. I’ll go along. I don’t give a shite. Barney was in the Humbert today telling people I’d become a fucking patient. He was quoting something about to be or not to be. That smart arse is looking for his comeuppance. Him up there on the dozers making money hand over fist. It was pissing rain tonight so we didn’t go outside, me and Ofeelia. Found a flower down behind the toilet bowl though.
* * *
Another fucking delay. It was pissing rain again tonight. Ofeelia went barmy with the sugar. Christ that girl’s definitely off her rocker. Now that Barney’s gone there’s twice as much bloody work around the bin.