She’ll do the bus stops, waste a bit of time and head back to the station. Up the Quays she forces herself, tempted into a newsagent by the promise of a Club Milk and a paper, but the queue of crisp-buying youngsters feels too long and she’s hot, everywhere she goes into she’s so hot. They’re pulling at chocolate, papers and magazines. And they’re all so young again. Everyone is young, everyone is who Jimmy was and who Jimmy couldn’t be. She’s come to Dublin for the day’s shopping to be shut of the voices and the sights and it’s back to the Blue House with the gaping hole she’ll retreat to early. It’s back to the stool and the small hope he’ll come again and stare at her from the wall. If she can hear him alone, that would do.
Episode 16
She’s like a bold teenager out there: the flask jolting her thigh like the accidental budge of a drunk or clumsy lover. Her finger presses hard on the spoon handle. Along she goes merrily. She hasn’t thought too much about what she’ll do when she gets to the house and she’s going along very merrily with the freedom thing until something takes her ankle sharp and fast. She’s down. It’s wet. This is not good.
The flask has bruised her leg. Hip soaked in a muddy graze. Whatever way she fell or however she slammed, the side of her head — her temple — took a whack that sounded worse than it feels and now she’s down here on her side in the dark and the worst of it, is not the difficulty getting up, it’s that her plans are slipping away.
Ding! goes the plan to arrange the small footstool, dang! disappears the careful removal of her flask from the bag, and rats! to the gentle twist of the lid, breeze of steam and comfort of her cup of tea, all alone, in another man’s house.
She doesn’t care about physical collapse, nor cuts, she is stuck and she’s not going to be stuck any longer because Lord knows what they’ll do if they find her out here, in this condition, with a spoon up her sleeve. They’ll commit her, she’s sure.
She attempts to thrash her body about a bit, to roll to her knees, but however she fell, something is stuck or gone out of joint. All she can feel is the flask wedged under her thigh and searing pain when she tries to put her arm down to push herself up. The pain is there, no matter what she does with her arm, so clearly it must be broke. She’s to go the other way, to get herself over the flask, more pain, it doesn’t look good. Dark and marshy where she’s fallen, if she can get flat on her back then she can inch her way down the hill she came up perhaps. But what of the boulders, the sharp stones? And there’s the wall she climbed over. The wall between herself and her house. The wall between her house and the common land and Limerick’s house. Should she call out? No. For she does not want any of them to come and find her.
Of course it’s cold, it would be cold, it couldn’t be anything other than cold, if you’re foolish enough to go out with your spoon and your flask and your plans afloat. There’s no foot traffic up here at night. The backs of the farms lead up and out to this common land and it’s a great way to access a place discreetly. They’ll only be coming up here to dump stuff. Would she be lucky, would this be a night some young hooligan might make a deposit and she could offer him ten Euro if he were to lift her back to her feet, leave her down to the house and say nothing. Fifteen Euro she thinks. A fella would take fifteen. He’d get a few cans, a young fella’d be happy with fifteen. She can think such giddying nonsense because she’s afraid. She’s afraid she’s gone too far now and what was she thinking, scooting back here like a nimble mountain goat looking for a munch. I told you discretion, discretion, she chastises herself.
Beirut is slipping away from me, she thinks. Beirut, Beirut, can you hear me Beirut?
*
Anois, anois, the Blue House with the gaping hole in it. The faded Blue House, her first step towards (Beirut) because she can see and hear Jimmy in there. No one’ll believe her, they’ll say she’s away on the wind, gone with the fairies and ruder besides. But he’s there, sometimes he’s there and sometimes he’s not and when he’s not she can feel the cold.
*
— I’m interested in a house, I told Grief on a Friday.
— In what way?
— I want to move into it.
— You want to move?
— Not exactly. I want to move into it.
— I don’t quite follow you now. Whose house is this?
— It’s belonging to a fella gone to Limerick, years since anyone was in it.
— And do you know this man?
— No.
Grief pauses and then gently explains how with a significant death our minds can become carried away with the urgency to do things — things she stresses that are unachievable and not in our best interests. Might this be one of those things?
— Not at all, I said. This is very achievable. It has already been achieved.
She marked a note on her notepad and I knew I was in trouble again.
— He’s given his permission.
— Well that’s great then.
*
The conversation is back at me, out here, under the open sky. I believe Limerick intended to give his permission, he was just not certain how to give it. I would hazard a guess that between my asking and his verdict he’d very bad luck with the horses or a pipe in his house burst, something incidental to our situation. He was hostile, he was unhelpful and he did chase me away, but I believe he longed to have me living in his house. He and I knew it was the best arrangement for the three of us. You know the way fellas are sometimes, they don’t know what’s good for them. It’s why there are women on the planet. It’s why they make such a mess of things. Oh the way they make a mess. It’s unparalleled. I can’t think about it now out here, laying here like this in the muck, it’ll only depress me.
*
Obviously I am still stuck out here in the dark and it’s not a great place for me to be and I am not a bit happy about it. Who’d be happy about being wedged in the muck when you’ve only stepped out to pursue your dreams? Honestly, find a man who is and I’ll shake his hand with this broken arm. I’ve just remembered the diabetes. I shouldn’t be out here with the diabetes I bet. That’ll be another reason they’ll squash me if they catch me. I think I am supposed to push the button with the diabetes. Did I push the button below in the house? If they come out with the ambulance I’ll be finished. Everyone’ll know and they’ll say sure she can’t cope. The ambulance came, did you hear? God love her, she can’t cope.
*
If I hadn’t believed he wanted me in his house I never would have gone. I am not a simple woman. I understand complexity. If the man’s face had said no I woulda listened. I took the bus to find him. His face didn’t say no. It said I dun know now.
*
Why had she gone to Limerick at all, why was she there asking permission about a house the teenagers just delved into? What is wrong with the aged the way they think and complicate every small thing?
Jimmy and his teenage friends went into the faded Blue House with the gaping hole in it. She remembered how they paid her no heed, and made their own of it, claiming it was comfortable enough. Was that what drew her to it? The knowledge it had been a place her son was comfortable, and when she reflected on their home and those last months — the same could not be said of it.
— But what is it you’re doing in there? She would ask Jimmy.
— Ah nothing to speak off. Just hanging about.
*
Nothing to speak of. A leg. Another leg. A lip. A hip. Another’s hip. From what she’d seen the day back the field, there was plenty to say of it. Perhaps they do not speak when they’re doing it, perhaps that’s what Jimmy meant. Wouldn’t it hurt tho? she wondered. Maybe that’s why they didn’t speak when they did it. In case they’d let out a yelp of pain and upset each other. What if one or the other were not enjoying it? Would he call out?