— You did?
— Yes.
— But I also wanted it to stay.
— How?
— Everything that I saw I’ve longed to see again and again.
— What do you mean by everything you saw?
— I saw Jimmy at fellas and fellas at Jimmy.
— How do you mean?
— At each other literally.
— In your house?
— Yes.
— That must have distressed you.
— I thought it did, but now I see that I loved to see it because it showed my son was alive and I want it all to come back. Because in wanting it all to be gone, it meant all of it and I wanted Jimmy gone, maybe more than my husband. And once he was gone I wanted him back, so very badly, certainly more than my husband.
— And now that the two of them are gone?
— Were you ever in the bus station in Athlone? There could be four buses parked and you’re sure you know someone only you don’t, but by the time you accept it, you climb back on the bus. I never get out of that bus station.
Grief did not push me. For I would have had to say I am only waiting to be gone myself now. Isn’t that the final instalment, hanging around in people’s way as they’ve to step around you and about you?
— I’ve a new friend, I told Grief instead.
— You do?
— Yes. He lives in Limerick.
— He, is it a man so?
— It is.
— Well, Grief said. That’s wonderful. Except, she said, it was important to take things slow. And she said many women rush into relationships.
I had to shut her up.
— Oh no it’s not a relationship, I said. He doesn’t actually like me, I said.
— Wouldn’t that be a bit tricky if he’s to be your friend?
— Not at all. I said. As long as he doesn’t throw something at me.
Grief returned to talking about my daughters.
— Now tell me the latest on your girls and the sleep situation.
Grief is so interested in my daughters, I almost expect her to proffer adoption papers.
*
— I want you to do something for me, Halim repeated. He’d asked twice, so he must have something filthy in mind. Perhaps he did know something of my son after all.
— Anything, I said like a horse with no harness.
— I have to know what the cervix feels like.
— Very good, I said, work away, thinking he meant sex.
*
It’s not ideal, not precisely her plan, but there are worse things to do on a Sunday and there was a time wasn’t there when she thought it would be a very good idea. The time when she determined it necessary to understand the beef of her husband’s actions.
— I want you to know I have read a book on it. Halim reassuring.
— Grand, she says. Get on with it, she thinks.
Some budgy fingers ’til she realizes it’s a physical examination he’s after, like the doctor, not the usual manner of squish-against-the-thigh let-me-in entry.
— You mean?
— Yes.
— I don’t know about that, she says.
— Please?
— Go on, but be careful. For God’s sake be careful.
Whilst it’s not the most appealing thing she has ever experienced, it’s not objectionable enough to tell him to cease and she stacked up her generosity and once he retrieved his fingers, he couldn’t find it and the book is all wrong, but he’s glad he tried. He said it is interesting up there, the abstract way you’d talk about a strange coloured bird up a tree. Isn’t the colour of its breast remarkable?
*
He’d one more request.
She was practical, pragmatic.
— What is it? She clucked before adding a curt, whatever it is would you just get on with it. Men such ditherers! She recognizes she’d be hard pressed to see her husband any more assertive in these circumstances.
Silent his hands meandered her mid-riff. Little interest in a traditional sexual act, she couldn’t quite fathom him, he was ordinance survey mapping her reproductive functions. The palms of his hands and fingers splayed and stretched on her skin, his thumb and first fingers pointed, stretched one either side against her skin, to locate precisely what? She’d no idea. He rotated her legs down from the bed, they trailed the carpet, parted them as wide as they’d go and manipulated her groin with his forehead. It was mighty peculiar. She could not figure what he was up to, only felt some kind of gentle headbutting motion, as though he was trying to push his cranium back into her. She’d give him a maximum of two minutes at this lark before she’d lean to her final request, that she’d been deliberating on. She could hear his voice again those months back instructing her on how she’s to be with her son, as though only he, in his boots, might understand him. Leave him be, she heard, he’ll tell you when he’s ready. We’ll see, she thought, we’ll see how much you understand him. We’ll see now what you know.
Halim was smiling pleased, after her allowing the head in the groin rummage and she wondered for how many years of his life he wished to undertake this exploration. How many women had rejected such a request? How many women had he filled up trying to parse his way to the mystery of the cervix? She looked at him and realized he was a tender young man, who, for whatever reason, no matter how many women he might fill, would always have an empty hole. Never, he exclaimed hushed, did I think I’d get this chance and it’s exactly how I imagined! Can you still have a baby? he asked absentmindedly.
*
Her request, in comparison, was tame. And he was awkwardly bemused by her instructions, squinting and staring down at the top of her head, his body a tad stiff and tickled by her nippling. Her insistence that she repeat the nipple sequence until it was perfect confused him, up on the elbow, she instructed him to act indifferent, then become aware and he wasn’t entirely convinced by the requirement to fling his thigh over her, suggesting it’d be more natural if she flung hers over him. They rehearsed and rehearsed. Now we’ll do it properly she said. One last time. He was generous and didn’t question the what and why of this nipple fixation. It’s like a play, Halim laughed. Exactly, she thought. Precisely.
She’d moved onto hand gestures to illustrate so there might be no misunderstanding: her final request. Her skirt she hitched and indicated her rump. To tell him this is where you are going next! She ensured her hand pinpoints his destination precise. Make no mistake about it she did not flap vaguely about the kidneys, but as she did so it dawned on her this might not replicate what she saw Jimmy do by that stone, since Jimmy was doing it. This wretched inversion time and time again. But it was too late. The request had been filed.
She pointed out the window.
— Out there!
There was a very interesting pause. It was one of the more interesting pauses of her life.
Halim’s arms flew up. His head retracted slightly.
— Absolutely not!
He began to wave his hands like he was signalling traffic.
— I never do that. No way I go in there! On my mother’s life!
She laughed, a hearty laugh into the calm that followed.
She offered tea. She was furious. Furious that her ascent was cut off, so near the top. In protest she did not scald the pot.
But she’s vindicated. Ha! A wholesome vindication.
— These are the things my son likes to do. You don’t know anything about my son, she said quietly.
She watched him to ensure he’d heard her, but he had not. He had not registered a word of it. He was still looking out the window.
She wanted to be both her son and the man who hupped him.
She didn’t want what Red wanted.
*
At the table there was something slightly stunned about Halim. Like she offered something but with no place to put the image it stuck in his throat and rendered him speechless. They won’t discuss it. Never, she thought. If he tries, I’ll tell him to go. Not to worry, yet again he trod back to childbirth.