‘Sure I’ll join you since I have the beads with me.’ She took out her rosary from her apron pocket and eased herself off the chair to kneel down.
‘Call Tony,’ said Grandma to Ben and held up her beads and rattled them at Granda.
They all began saying the family rosary. When Granda knelt at the chair his hearing-aid was useless. He said his prayers into himself because he couldn’t join in the responses at the right time.
Tony knelt by the door so’s he could escape immediately it was over. Ben made sure he was at the chair with the paper on the seat. He read an advertisement for Burberry raincoats while they repeated the Hail Marys over and over again. There was a drawing of a woman wearing a raincoat and striding through rain which was just black strokes all going the same way. The woman’s leg, with its seamed stocking, was reflected in a puddle. Ben thought about washing a dead girl. The thought leapt into his mind and he couldn’t get rid of it. A soapy flannel able to move anywhere. He tried to be good and put the thoughts out of his mind. He was getting a hard-on and if he allowed the thoughts to stay it would be a sin. In the middle of the rosary – it would be double the sin. He tried to concentrate on the prayer.
‘Holy Mary Mother of God prayfrus sinners now and at the arovar death Amen.’
Beneath her armpits. Around her belly button. The wet face cloth moving down between her legs.
‘Ben, can you not kneel up straight?’ said Grandma. ‘You’re bent over there like a pig at a trough. The Second Joyful Mystery – The Visitation. Our Father who art in heaven . . .’
He turned his body away from her in case she would see what was happening to him and knelt up straight with his hands joined. He looked at the ceiling. He tried not to think of washing the body of a girl. Then he would definitely know whether they had hair hidden down there or not – or whether his brother was trying to make a fool out of him. Tony was smart. Tony knew everything. But Ben had seen marble statues in books with nothing obvious down there. What he did know was that they had hair under their arms. Last summer a French girl student had come into their class to teach for a while. On hot days she wore a summer frock and when she pointed out things on the blackboard they all saw the hair in her armpits.
He had to think of something different.
The worst thing he had ever seen in a paper was the air crash of the Busby Babes. The snow on the wreckage of the plane carrying Manchester United back from Munich. The thought of Duncan Edwards, his favourite player, lying dead. And all the others. It was beyond crying.
What if the plane bringing his Mum and Dad back from France crashed? That would make him an orphan. It was the first time they had ever flown and they’d seemed very nervous leaving.
‘The Fifth Joyful Mystery – Jesus is Found in the Temple. Nurse Foley?’
Nurse Foley began giving out the prayer.
‘Our Father who art in heaven . . .’
He thought for a while of being an orphan. Maybe it would be good. Everybody would make a fuss of him. Giving him extra things. But the thought of both his parents being dead was unendurable. Either one of them, maybe. Sometimes he made himself choose. Mum or Dad? Which was worse? Who would he miss the most?
After the rosary proper they said all the trimmings – right down to a prayer for a special intention. His Grandmother would never tell Ben what it was – it would ruin any chance of success if she said it out loud. And he noticed that when she said this prayer she clenched her eyes tight shut and moved her lips more than she usually did. When everything was finished Grandma blessed herself and kissed the cross of her beads and hung them on the handle of the cupboard. Tony left the room immediately and they heard him pounding up the stairs.
‘I suppose Lord Duke McKittiax has better things to do than listen to us gabbing away,’ said Nurse Foley, sitting back up in her chair and putting her beads in her pocket. Granda continued kneeling at his chair, not realising that the prayers had finished. Ben tapped the old man’s shoulder and he looked up a bit startled. He smiled at Ben and said he was doing some extra praying – a wee prayer of thanksgiving for Celtic winning.
‘That Charlie Tully’s something else.’
Grandma had begun to clear the table, stacking the dishes up on the draining-board of the sink. The two women talked as Grandma went to and from the table. Granda fell asleep with his head lolled to one side and his mouth open. When Grandma had finished clearing the table she covered him with an overcoat to keep him warm. Nurse Foley asked,
‘How’s he keeping this weather?’
‘He’s rightly. The pains bother him a bit – but touch wood he’s been fine today.’
‘Surely they’ll bring back some Lourdes water. You can put a drop of that on his joints.’
Grandma turned to Ben who was sitting pretending to read the paper.
‘Ben, why don’t you go into the other room and amuse yourself.’
‘There’s nothing to do.’
‘There’s those dishes to be done.’
‘I’d better be on my way,’ said Nurse Foley.
‘Stay where you are. The dishes can wait.’
Ben lowered his head closer to the paper.
‘I know there’s nobody better than Our Lady when it comes to that kinda thing’, said Nurse Foley, ‘ – but did they ever think of McHarg?’
‘McHarg?’
‘Seventh son of a seventh son.’
‘Where’s he?’
‘Beyond Randalstown somewhere. It’s nearer than France and it could do no harm.’
‘I haven’t heard of him.’
‘It might be worth a try.’
Granda stirred in his sleep and made chewing noises. The coat began to slip off him and Grandma leaned over and adjusted it.
‘His ears is beginning to flap,’ said Grandma, nodding at Ben. ‘Why don’t you go and play some records, son?’ Ben made a face and moved out of the room. As he closed the door he heard them lower their voices but did not listen to what was being said. He never listened at a door in case he heard something bad about himself.
He considered going up to talk to Tony but he would be reading or pretending to read. Going to Grammar school had changed him a lot – it had given him a big head about himself. He liked showing off – trying to scare everybody, quoting stuff like Beware, beware the Ides of March in a hoarse voice. Ben hoped to get his Eleven plus and be able to join him after the summer. It would be good if they had to walk to the College together.
In the sitting-room it was a grey summer’s evening and the window panes were covered with rain. Away from the fire it was cold. There was a damp patch of wallpaper on the chimney-breast caused, so his mother said, by some cheapskate builder patching a hole with ‘weeping sand’ and it became more obvious on wet days. The noise of traffic passing was in that room all the time and somewhere a blackbird was singing. When a certain type of double-decker bus went past, the window pane vibrated, shaking the droplets of rain. There was a fly somewhere but he couldn’t see it.
The chiming clock on the mantelpiece had stopped long ago because the key to wind it up had been lost. Ben stood staring at it. It had Roman numerals which turned more and more upside down the nearer they got to half-past.
He lifted the clock down and set it on the rug. There was a long hat-pin with a black pearl handle beneath where the clock had been and he took this and lay down. He opened the door at the back of the clock. Inside, a row of tiny brass hammers. The chimes were made of brass rods of different lengths. With the hat-pin he lifted and dropped each hammer onto its chime. The echoes went on and on and on – the different notes interfering with each other until the noise of traffic came back. It was the saddest sound he had ever heard. If he lifted all the hammers and released them slowly by withdrawing the hatpin then it sounded like a harp – unearthly. Like heaven. Deliver us from evil. He played the clock because there was nothing else to do. Once, when he was much smaller, a visitor had asked him if he played anything and when he said – the dock
– they all threw back their heads and laughed. He smiled but he wasn’t sure what was funny.
When he tired of the clock he went over and looked out at the street. The bluebottle flew into the window bizzing against the glass. The sound stopped and it climbed slowly. Ben folded a paper record sleeve so that the central hole became a bite out of one side. He folded it again so that the bite disappeared and it became a strap of paper.
After a while the fly zig-zagged back into the centre of the room and flew in squares around the light bowl. You could see a freckle of dead flies and moths in the bowl when the light was turned on. Eventually the bluebottle buzzed to the window again and Ben whacked it to the floor where he stamped on it. When he took his foot away the fly bounced against the pile of the fawn rug.
In the street a woman walked beneath her umbrella so that he couldn’t see her face – just a coat and legs. He put his hands in his pockets. The face of a dead girl might be covered with a sheet – pulled up from her grey feet until only her face was hidden. Everything else he could see. He felt the beginnings of a hard coming and took his hands out of his pockets again. His eye kept being drawn to the dead fly on the carpet. He scooped it onto the record paper and threw it in the fireplace. Against the black of the grate he couldn’t see it.
He went out into the hall and heard the voices still going on and on. His father had modernised the doors – hiding the panelling beneath hardboard – so that it made a double thickness. The voices were murmuring – indistinct. They were up to something. If he opened the door they would stop talking. They would look up at him waiting for him to give a reason for his being there. He hated that.
He went back to the front room and plugged in the radiogram. It was a huge unfinished affair being built by his father – ‘a genuine piece of furniture’. The wood inside had not been varnished yet and smelt like freshly sharpened pencils. To the right of the turntable was a pile of records without their paper covers. They made zipping noises as he sorted through them. He played Whispering Hope very low – it wasn’t the kind of thing he should be playing. Far too sloppy. If his brother caught him he would laugh at him and taunt him. Why do you play that when Johnny Ray’s there? So he lay down with his ear very close to the black cone of the loudspeaker. His father had not got round to covering the speaker with material. Whispering Hope made him want to cry, it gave him a strange feeling in his stomach. Two voices, a man and a woman’s, threading in and out of one another. Harmonising. Later he played Johnny Ray singing Just-a-walking in the Rain and turned the volume up loud.
Grandma banged the sitting-room door with her fist and shouted,
‘Turn that thing down a bit.’
Nurse Foley opened the door and said at the top of her voice,
‘That’s me away.’
Ben turned the volume down. Nurse Foley stepped into the sitting room. Grandma stood behind her. Ben could see that they had both been crying.
‘The spit of him,’ said Nurse Foley. She reached into her pocket and produced a half crown and gave it to Ben.
‘It’s not seventy-five thousand but it’ll get you some sweets.’
‘What do you say?’ said Grandma.
‘Oh thanks – ’ said Ben.
‘Don’t look so surprised,’ said Grandma.
‘But what’s it for? It’s not my birthday or anything . . .’
‘It’s for being good,’ said Nurse Foley.
ST MUNGO’S MANSION
Your man opens this letter and reads about the plight of St Mungo’s Mansion and how it’s going to be bulldozed if nothing is done about it. Well, the people who have written your man the letter are going to do something about it. No messing about for them. They plan to publish a recipe-book.
The implication is that your man is a celebrity or, if not that, then at least someone prominent in public life and they not only want a favourite recipe but an anecdote as well. For reasons of copyright the recipe should not be identical to any in an existing publication. So your man rolls up the sleeves.
Dear Sir, says he, my favourite is a boiled egg in a cup. Wrong. Better again is two boiled eggs in a cup.
METHOD
1. Insert two raw eggs into tap-water contained in a saucepan and heat to boiling point. Maintain this temperature for four minutes.
2. Separate the shell from the edible part. Protection for the hands may be necessary here – heat-proof gloves of some sort. Put the edible part into a cup – add butter, salt, paprika and pepper to taste and smash it about with a fork or something. Eat with the best of soda bread.
My favourite anecdote about myself is not really an anecdote. It is the title of a story. There is no story, only a title. It is: A THREE-LEGGED HORSE CALLED CLIPPITY.
Hope the above is helpful to saving Saint Mungo’s Mansion. Yours sincerely, Samuel Beckett.
Your man is not really Samuel Beckett but it amuses him to think he is.
JUST VISITING
The pub, almost opposite the hospital gate, had an off-licence attached. He waited a long time for the green man before crossing. The rain was falling constantly and the wind darkened the pavements as it gusted. He ran with his coat collar up. A bell chinked when he opened the door and a girl came out from the back to serve him. There was not a great range of Scotch in half bottles so he bought, not the cheapest – because that would look bad – but a middle-priced one. The girl began to wrap it in brown paper.
‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘It’ll do like that.’ He slipped the half bottle into his jacket, making sure the pocket flap concealed it.
In the lift to the wards a Sister with winged spectacles stood opposite him. He thought he heard the liquid clink in the bottle when they stopped at any floor but she didn’t seem to notice. When the lift doors opened on the fourteenth floor he smelled the antiseptic – but there was another smell – a perfume he couldn’t quite place. A sweet, intense – uneasiness. He walked along the corridor.
He hadn’t seen Paddy for three years – not since he himself had moved to the city. Through the ward windows he could see men in various propped positions, in beds, on beds. A sign above one – NIL BY MOUTH. Was that him? How much had the illness changed him? Would he recognise him easily? A nurse in her forties sat at a desk mid-way along the corridor. She continued writing her report, then looked up.
‘Just visiting,’ he said. ‘I’m here for a Mister Quinn. Mister Paddy Quinn.’ She stood up and escorted him. The name tag on her lapel said Mrs MacDonald. Again he was aware of the liquid clinking in the bottle in his pocket.
‘He’s in a room by himself – he’s still very weak after his operation. So please – if you don’t mind – don’t be too long.’ She opened the door and called out, ‘Visitor for you, Paddy.’
A figure lay flat in the bed with his back to the door facing the window. The visitor moved round the bed to face him.
‘Paddy – how are you?’
The nurse closed the door. Paddy gave a groan and heaved himself onto his elbow.
‘I hate that bitch, MacDonald. She is so fucking patronising,’ he said. ‘Good to see you, Ben.’ Ben reached out and touched the older man on the shoulder. ‘Watch me – or I’ll fall apart.’ Ben plumped up the pillows and wedged them behind Paddy’s back.
‘So – how are you?’
‘Some fucker unseamed me from the nave to the chaps.’ Paddy lay back on the pillows and blew out his breath. His beard and hair were now completely white. When he opened his pyjama jacket to display his wounds Ben tried not to let anything show on his face. There was an incision beginning at Paddy’s neck which zig-zagged down his side to the bottom of his ribs.
‘Jesus, it’s like the map of a railway track.’ There were junctions and off-shoots and either there was extensive bruising or else the whole wound had been painted with iodine.
‘It’s hand-stitched,’ he said. ‘Nothing but the best.’
‘Is it sore?’
‘Naw . . .’ Paddy looked at him. ‘What the fu
ck d’you think?’
Ben nodded, not knowing whether to smile or not.
‘Did you manage to run the cutter?’
Ben glanced over at the small window in the centre of the door. There was no one looking.
‘In my wash-bag,’ said Paddy. Ben slipped the bottle from his pocket into the wash-bag, covered it with a damp facecloth and zipped it up.
‘Crinkle-free,’ he said. ‘The girl was going to wrap it but I said no. I didn’t know the lie of the land up here.’ The wash-bag was now stowed at the bottom of the bedside cabinet. Ben sat down on a chair. Paddy leaned back on his pillows.
‘It’s good to know that’s there.’
‘Are you not allowed anything?’
‘Two cans of Guinness a day. Three if someone’s brave enough to buck the system.’
‘Slim rations,’ said Ben.
‘I’m on that many bloody drugs . . .’
‘When did you arrive?’
‘The night I phoned. They operated the next day.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get up sooner but you know how it is.’ Ben shrugged, making out he had no control over anything. ‘So – how have you been since I last saw you?’
‘Apart from cancer – okay.’
‘Sorry – but you know what I mean. How’s the town I love so well?’
‘The terrible town of Tynagh. It’s not been the same since you left. Morale has taken a nose dive.’ There was a long silence. ‘Where green peppers wrinkle on the Co-op shelf.’ Ben rested his elbows on his knees and stared down at the terrazzo floor. Paddy stared at the white coverlet. ‘What’s the teaching like here?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Paddy . . .’ Ben leaned back in his chair and appeared to concentrate on the ceiling. There was another pause – the wind buffeted the window and the rain sounded like hailstones against the glass. ‘I mean – they wouldn’t operate . . . to that extent if they didn’t think they could . . . I mean the signs are good. My own father – they just took one look and closed him up again. Told my mother the only thing left was to take him to Lourdes. Are you getting radiotherapy?’
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