33
There’s a comedy on the television, but I can’t enjoy it. My mood is like it was the night in the caretaker’s shed with Brendan; now, like then, there is no escape, and because there is no way to be distracted, and I am alone, it is as though I am exaggerated, and notice everything. I am too alive; too much of myself, all blown up.
I hear knocking at the door, and I get up and open it, but there is nobody there.
I thought it could be him. It would make sense for him to come back now.
I sit on the floor, close to the television screen, but bad memories come. They are the strangest kind of memories, things I thought I’d forgotten. I remember the time I was on the toilet at Brendan’s house. I was in there for a long time because I was constipated. Brendan was standing outside, waiting. I could hear him shuffling his feet and sighing. Finally he said, ‘Hurry up’, and I said, ‘I’m doing a big plop.’
I don’t know why I said I was doing a big plop. I had to stay in the toilet like a prisoner until I stopped being red in the face. I couldn’t see the humour in it, but he kept laughing and ran around the house telling his sisters what I said. He teased me about it all day.
I remember this and turn red even though there’s nobody in the living room. It is as though my brain has decided to run its own dark film with the volume on high; a film of bad thoughts, of bad memories, and every thought is worse than the one before it, and nothing will stop the film from running.
I hear ringing at the door and go to it.
There is nobody there.
I call out. ‘Hello?’
Is it him?
‘Hello?’
I go back to the living room and turn the volume up and the television is much louder, but my brain is stronger and I can’t control it. I go to the kitchen. There’s nothing to eat, no milk, bread, biscuits or Weetabix.
I go to my mother’s bedroom so I can take a few coins from her purse for the shops. I open the door quietly. She is awake, sitting up in bed, her back against the headboard, and staring at the wall.
‘I thought you’d be asleep,’ I say.
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s been seven days now,’ she says. ‘Seven days and only a few hours of sleep. I’ve had it. Can you believe it? Your mother’s had it.’
There are tears rolling down her face, but she doesn’t make a crying noise.
‘What do you mean you’ve had it?’ My knees buckle and I almost fall.
‘I used to be beautiful. But I’ve had my last beautiful day. I didn’t even know when it was. Was it last month or last winter? Was it my last birthday or the one before?’
I fold my arms to have something to do with myself. I don’t know why she’s talking about the way she looks. She is not ugly and she is not old.
‘My last day of looking beautiful is gone and there was no warning. And it has gone for good.’
She reaches for the glass of water by the bed and takes a small sip. Her lips are dry and bits of skin are flaking and peeling from them.
‘And one day soon it won’t matter what kind of mirror I look in, it won’t matter what the light is like, bright or dark, I will look old.’
‘But you aren’t old,’ I say. ‘You’ll never be ugly. It’s just that lately your hair is messy, and a bit grey.’
‘Come here to me for a minute.’
‘No,’ I say. I don’t feel like being close.
‘Do you miss your da?’
‘Sort of.’
‘I spoke to him today. I told him I forgive him, but he says he won’t be coming back. He says we have humiliated him. He says he has been annihilated.’
‘Why don’t we go to Gorey, then?’
‘We’re not welcome there.’
‘Yes, we are.’
‘No. We are not. We are not welcome there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we have brought shame to the good name of your father’s family, and that will never be forgiven.’
‘It was the truth. Would you prefer I didn’t tell you? I was protecting you.’
She laughs. A strange laugh, like a bark or a dark cough. ‘Protecting me from what? Syphilis? Gonorrhoea?’ She laughs again. ‘Look at you. An eleven-year-old in the body of a grown man who insists on the ridiculous truth and who has got into a bad habit of lying.’
I walk over to the bed and she straightens up and pulls the covers up to her neck.
‘I’m not a liar. He is,’ I say. ‘You used to say that trust matters more than anything.’
‘I care about avoiding misery wherever I can. I think that’s all anybody cares about.’
‘That’s a dumb thing to think.’
‘Of course it is. But pain is much harder on the mind than ignorance.’
‘You’re stupid,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know you were so stupid.’
‘Maybe I am. Why don’t you make yourself a sandwich?’
‘There’s no bread,’ I say and leave the room without remembering to take the money.
I don’t go to school the next day. I stay at home and eat some spaghetti from the saucepan, and creamed rice out of the tin, and watch television most of the day. I go to the shops downstairs to buy some bread and tea. I bring my mother a pot of tea and a plate of toast and, when I tell her I’m worried about her not being able to sleep, she tells me not to worry for her, that she has a cold, a bad cold, that’s all.
‘But you never sleep. And you’re tired all the time. Can’t you get out of bed? Let’s go out and do something.’
‘What would you like to do?’
‘Anything. Maybe go into Grafton Street or to the zoo.’
‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘You used to want to do things. You used to want to go to the sea and go for drives.’
‘And I will again. I’m just a bit weary with this cold.’
‘You’ve never had such a bad cold before. And colds aren’t meant to change people and make them so different.’
‘Well, I’m older now.’
I want her to stop talking about being old. I want to break the vase on her bedside table and knock the lampshade over and drag her by the arm onto the floor and change her back to who she used to be.
‘Who cares?’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the zoo or get the train to Dún Laoghaire. And when we get home, maybe there’ll be a film.’
‘Maybe tomorrow. I might feel better tomorrow.’
‘Why don’t you say definitely tomorrow and then you’ll definitely feel better?’
‘All right. Definitely tomorrow. We’ll catch the train to the sea.’
I go to sleep and in the morning I remember the dream I had about me and my mother. We are on a cruise ship and we’re very happy together, on our way to Niagara to see Ripley’s Museum.
We sit near the porthole in our cabin on the top deck and watch while a man dressed in green overalls loads our suitcases onto a chute and we watch the suitcases slide down.
But the chute becomes narrower and some of the suitcases slide down too fast, fly into the air, and drop into the water. People scream and cry but the man in the green overalls laughs. ‘Some will miss,’ he says. ‘Some will miss.’
Then I see my suitcase, a small blue one with a leather strap, and I am nervous as I watch it slide off the chute. But instead of flying into the water to be lost forever, the case comes towards me. It flies through the porthole window and lands softly on my lap.
I feel happy. I don’t know what happened to my mother’s suitcase in the dream but it doesn’t seem to matter.
I make tea and take it to the bedroom. She’s awake; sitting up in bed, more or less the way I left her yesterday, wearing a pink cardigan over her nightie, staring at the wall.
‘Room service,’ I say. ‘Did you order a cup of tea?’
‘Aren’t you sweet?’ she says. ‘I’d love a cup of tea. Why don’t you sit with me a while?’
She drinks her tea and I lie down next to her. ‘What will happen if you can’t ever sleep again?’ I ask.
‘God help me, if that happens.’
‘So, we’ll go on the train to the sea today?’
She puts her arm around me. ‘My darling, I think at the moment there’s more chance vampire bats will take up drinking hot milk.’
She laughs at her joke, but I don’t want to laugh. ‘Are you saying no?’
‘That’s not what I said,’ she says. ‘This isn’t a good time. It’s a very bad time.’
She has cold blood like my father. And her hair, it’s not only grey at the front, near her temples and her ears; grey strands hang down near her eyes, and it’s greasy and dirty hair too. Dirty and grey.
I wait for her to finish her tea and when she puts the cup down on the bedside table I take a pillow from behind my head and rest it on my knee. I don’t talk, and neither does she. I put the radio on to drown out some of my thoughts.
‘Turn that off,’ she says and, like most of what she says, it is as though she hardly cares, as though what happens next is none of her business.
I turn the radio off, get back into bed, and hold the pillow on my lap.
‘You’re taking up too much room there, John. Can’t you move to the other side of the bed?’
I move across and, without my weight in the middle of the mattress, her body rises up, as though it were something light and plastic in the water. I must be much heavier than she is.
‘That’s better,’ she says as she presses her fingers to her temples. ‘But I’ve got a rotten headache. If only I could sleep. If I could sleep then we could be happy again.’
‘You’d be yourself again? You’d be happy again?’
‘I don’t know, but I’d give anything.’
I wait for her to take two sleeping pills and, when she lies down on her side, I lie down too, and stroke her back.
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘It soothes me to have you here. Maybe I’ll sleep now.’
I leave her and go to the living room. I want to be calm, but I don’t know how. I sit, then stand again. I fidget and pace. I try to sit but I can’t. At three o’clock I go back to her, to see if she is sleeping. But she doesn’t sleep. She is sitting up, fiddling with the seam of her torn nightdress.
‘Come and sit with me,’ she says. ‘I feel shattered. I’m in pieces.’
She lies on her back. I get on the bed and lie next to her. She is quiet and her breathing is soft. I take her resting hands and fold them across her chest and I look at her. She is still and peaceful now. But I know she’ll soon wake.
I climb on top of her. My legs straddle her stomach and hips and I want to stay here and look down at her calm face, but she moves and groans.
To stop her moving, I take the pillow and put it over her face and then I lay down on her, on top of the pillow, and I make myself heavy. When she stops moving, I put my head on the pillow. We are both sleepy now.
Suddenly she kicks. She kicks against me and her arms fly at my face. I am surprised by her violence, surprised by her strength. The pillow muffles her cries and moans but still I wish the radio could be turned on to drown out the awful noise.
With all my strength, I press down hard on the pillow and I hold her arms down with my hands and fight against her kicking. When, at last, she stops struggling, I take myself off her body and look at her: She is calmer again; she is prettier.
I get up off the bed. It is over.
* * *
But my feet are cold. Why are they so cold? I need socks. Something to keep them warm. Why are they so cold? What is wrong with my feet? I go to the drawer to find some socks. I must think about what I will do next, but my feet are so cold. I search in the drawers for warm socks. I cannot think.
I hear a rattle, a scraping noise, a faint but constant sound, somebody outside running a coin along the wall? I stop still and now I hear it, louder and clearer, the sound is in the bedroom. I close the drawer and as I straighten to stand I realise she is coughing.
I turn to face her. Her eyes are open and her hands are on her neck. I watch until she stops spluttering. I watch until she looks at me.
‘Mammy?’
She lifts herself from the bed, puts her feet over the side, and stands, her arms held out, her hands up as though to stop me coming towards her.
‘Did you try to smother me?’ Her voice is uncaring, calm. ‘Is that what you tried to do?’
‘No, Mammy. You just went to sleep. You had a nightmare.’
She doesn’t look at me, takes her dressing gown from the back of the chair and leaves; out to the hallway.
I follow her.
‘Get out of my sight,’ she says.
She walks into the living room and I follow her.
‘Get away from me,’ she says, her hands held out in front of her breasts.
‘But why? What’s wrong?’
I move towards her, but she backs away and stands hunched in the corner.
‘Holy Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.’
‘Why are you praying?’
‘Because my son tried to smother his mother. Oh, God. Smother his mother! Smother his own mother!’
‘You said you wanted to sleep.’
‘I didn’t say I wanted to die. You could have killed me.’
‘But you didn’t die. I love you, Mammy. Won’t you stop crying?’
I move towards her and she backs away.
‘But I didn’t,’ I say. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Get out of my sight!’ she shouts.
I go to my room and lie on my bed and listen to my mother on the telephone to the Gardai.
She gives our address. She repeats it three times and then she says, ‘I think my son tried to murder me in the bed.’