She sent two cows to the factory without his permission. She got a man to bring them in for her and he docked her money. You don’t get a fair price these days, he said, handing her a pittance. When Our Woman told Himself she’d sent the cows to the factory she hoped it might spur him up from the chair. She hoped it’d make him cross.
— Very good, he said, you did well. How much did you get? You did well, he repeated, without listening for the answer.
She elected not to explain that she had to send them because the bills were piling. Nor did she say she’d no idea how long he might sit in the chair and she couldn’t rely that he might feed them into the winter.
She paid the bills that time. Everything except the phone bill. She left that one to mount.
If he wasn’t going to do his chores, they still had to be done. Our Woman had to get out and do them.
Briefly she decided how much feed to buy and whether to treat for fluke.
And then one day he stood up again and announced he was going to look for a trailer. All would be well if he found a trailer his arm gesture said.
*
I had been looking for the muck when I was out and about. I’d paid attention and d’ya know it was going to be a great deal harder than Red the Twit suggested these things were. I had no man express any interest in me, other than throw me the odd sentence at the Co-op between the aisles about the weather or a bit of chatter down the field that usually was only asking after Himself. I’d swear every one of them was in a coma.
I still could not fathom how he’d done what she proposed he had. I was perplexed agin. Furious and perplexed. But the bigger fear was at me: would he sit down again? While he was up it was great but if he sat down we’d be sunk. I could not allow for it and a plan formed in my head. A plan that had to be got on with. A hunt.
*
In a place with a window that looked out on the street, the hunt commenced so if what Our Woman must watch is too unpalatable, she can avert her gaze. She began in the place where all of it commenced, that bar of the hotel where Red the Twit originally found her. The place she sat down for soup. She began where he told her to begin. In the window. Everything is in the window.
Beside her a conversation unrolled about what happened behind a nightclub last night. It was unpalatable, so she looked out the window. If she was forever looking out the window, how would her hunt begin?
*
It took a further six weeks and three bowls of soup over a few visits to the same place, just as she’d concluded it untenable, then she spied one, ginger-haired male, humpy towards mid forty, who it transpired came through the hotel near weekly. A greeting card sales-man, fat-fingered, with wide thumbnails she noted each time she saw him drinking a cup of tea.
It wouldn’t be long now, for what would a blabbing fella like that do here, in this place, at night, only be hanging about, so certainly, when she went into town, whether it was for animal feed or the library, she carefully positioned herself in that place with a cup of tea, late afternoons, every week, and tracked his movements.
Lonely and predictable he was, having no one to care of in the town, except the shopkeepers he visited every few weeks to hawk his cards at, and talk his do you know any Haggerty’s in Cobh conversations — so her presence eventually led to nods and greeting. Being a salesman, he was swiftly stirred to sell her something. Velvet cards, he tossed. Had she heard of such a thing?
She listened with is that right? curiosity in her face, solemnly infused with language of feigned interest (perky question) and deep attention (would you ever, I never knew that now, very interesting). She used the good eyes God gave her to stare at him. This fella needed attention the way birds need nests, so he’d pick and pluck and lift and twist whatever he could grab. He couldn’t grab much blather from Our Woman as she’s unusually careful in what she’ll reveal in this instance, having in her mind a much greater purpose for him that required little in the way of discussion and more in the way of disrobing. Her strategy was to keep him on this path. When he talked of the velvet cards he could order for her, his tale of how he’d the official business and the sideline and he was talking to her now about his sideline she told him warmly hadn’t he great initiative, while noticing the collar of his shirt very mucky on the inside by his neck where he sweated. No woman to mind his collar or no woman properly attending to them. He was a sweaty man, but he’d do. She contemplated her strategy of what she needed to do with this moist, nervy salesman, while he persisted with the line his cards could change the lives of many around her. She half listened, and mentally bumped brain to limbs and decided today, yes today would be the day to move toward him and collect whatever she needed. She had to be clear and strategic about what she was looking to understand. She hesitated. Could she stomach licking such a dense specimen, as the licking according to Red the Twit’s description would be required? However, more heartily came the thought, surely he’d do, because she was looking for a quick insight, not a thesis on the matter. Thus she swallowed and tolerated him through three pints — two bought with her husband’s money — an extraordinary length to endure such a dull man. Giggled at his jokes, smiled at remarks and diverted inquiries about her people and yes, that’d be great altogether when he suggested he’d go upstairs to fetch the half dozen mauve cards he intended to sell for the outrageous price of three Euro. She prided herself on telling him he could have the whole three Euro and not at all she would never take a discount. And no, there was no need to bring them down, she’d go up to collect them.
This was her move, all hers. Now she owned it.
His eyes noted this sprightly gesture. Awkwardly noted it, mouth slackened a bit, brain too, surprise no doubt. He lost his balance when he pushed back the chair as she watched him calculate her intended boldness and blurted out how was she for Mass Cards, he’d lovely harvest sympathy ones, apples and a cart, pack of six, he could do her a deal a bunch for twenty Euros. Wait now ’til we see, he said.
Upstairs, offered he did, a cup of tea, from his travel kettle. I’ve only the one cup, but I’ll give ye a bag of your own — otherwise we’d have to share, him chuckling at his own gargle. Her, in order to prevent him launching into yet another chapter of his life story and who did she and didn’t she know from bally-below, moved and sat on the soft single bed, noting the dustbin, beside the tacky side table had been decorated with a glued piece of white lace. On the opposite wall, there hung a picture of the Pope, arms out, his thumb extended. For some inexplicable reason he reminded her of a stout-legged rugby player, egging her on, saying come on now and don’t be letting your team (the lads) down. Don’t be weak, said his upturned palms, it may not be palatable, but what do you think your husband has been at? He was hardly trimming that woman’s toenails now was he?
Card Man meandered on and on with snippets and jingles from life on the road until the kettle needed tipping and he paused to unplug and lift it. I’m very tired, she said in the middle of an anecdote about how badly repaired the roads were at some obscure roundabout in Cork, but if you’ve something specific in mind you’d like to ask me, please do, for I have a feeling I know what it is. But no, the silly man hopped backwards and threw his hands up at her in all politeness. No, nothing, not at all. Except did she take sugar?