But they left me into the bed of rest. The bed of rest is where they pinned me ’til I recalled why I didn’t feel cold, until I could tell them that I took my clobber off.
— How long has she been this way? Is she herself lately? Any previous episode? All questions addressed to my husband. I wanted to tell them don’t ask him! Sure he won’t tell you anything! He wouldn’t even tell you if the wheel was loose on his trailer! Over here lads! Ask me! Come on! Over here! They don’t hear me though I hear him. He was generous, so he was.
— No, doctor. She has never gone this way before. She’s a strong, sane woman. Lately though she’s been spending time talking to a man about a horse. We are thinking of buying a horse and she’s been looking into it. No, the man is not a family friend. A business man. A foreigner, a young fella, a Syrian he thinks.
There! Whamble! He has it! A Syrian has done this to her. A Syrian has driven out of her mind. Them foreigners if we let them near our old ladies, sure the wards start filling up is what my husband is trying to tell them.
But wait now the doctor isn’t interested in the Syrian: he’s asked for details of my daily life do I work, do I go up and down, do I seem happy?
The only thing that my husband has noticed is I have stopped eating eggs in recent months. And he found it peculiar.
An egg! An egg! Surely to God an egg would fix the woman! An egg would heal this mad equine-concerned woman!
Honestly, like a choir in my head and them all looking at each other and not me and me singing out the answers. Not the egg, not the Syrian, not the weather.
I continued to hear my husband.
— Do I cry often? The doctor asked.
— Never, I tell ya doctor, she is a strong and stable woman. Strong as an ox. She can lift heavier things than meself. It’s only since she began talking with that horse fella she went funny.
— Do I cry ever? the doctor asked. Himself nodded. At funerals and once when she could not turn on the bathroom tap.
The doctor wanted very much to know about the bathroom tap. My husband obliged.
— It was a difficult tap, doctor, as God is my judge I coulda cried over it myself some days. I should have repaired it. It was a brute of a tap and I was busy looking for a trailer for the tractor or the car to pull the horse we’d eventually pick up once she had talked to the horse fella, but she never seemed to be finished talking to the horse fella and I’d a lot of trouble getting the right trailer.
The doctor very much wanted to know about the trailer.
— How many trailers had my husband looked at? How many hours a week was he hunting for trailers?
— Seventeen trailers. Not many hours.
How many hours was the patient talking to the Horse Man?
— Not many hours.
But he met all kinds of people looking for the trailer and would you believe in spite of it he never could find a satisfactory trailer. I believe there may not be a satisfactory trailer to be found the length and breadth of this country by God.
Finally there was a pause between them.
My husband filled it.
— The only strange thing I will say about my wife is her feet are always cold. I’ve never known a woman with feet as cold as hers. All the blood just goes out of them and they’re white, pure white and a bit blue even.
The doctor would like to examine the patient alone in the room without the husband present.
I heard my husband, unhappy about this, enquire in what way would this doctor intend to examine his wife, but since the room was spinning, apparently, I ordered him loudly from the room in what was detailed in a report as an aggressive manner including the threat I would put the chair on top of his bullocky head. The deliberate peppering of my language with farming terms was noted as an act of verbal aggression by the student psychiatrist who, later, announced at a group meeting she felt there was tension on the farm.
All of it went into another envelope.
Episode 18
Her eldest daughter Áine’s on the mobile pacing up and down by the window. Spain is staring at her and Our Woman hates him. He’s been filling the ward full of nonsense ever since she went to take a shower. Three days in here, she had to take one. She can tell he was makin’ up nonsense. Now they’re all lookin’ at her.
— You’re the worst, she shouts at Spain. You’re making everyone in here depressed. I wish to God they’d discharge you.
Her daughter holds the phone away from her ear.
— Mam, stop. Stop would ya. Leave him alone.
— You should kill yourself, she shouts at Spain even louder. I’d hand you the rope! I’d pass you the gun!
She wants to go to isolation.
She’s determined.
To get away from Spain.
To be beside Beirut.
Beirut is probably still in isolation. She wonders if he’ll mind her broken arm and sprained ankle. How long is it since she was here again? She is confused. How’d she break the arm if she’s been in here?
*
Áine’s questions arrive like blood sausage on plates for hungry men. Where’s she been? Everyone looking for her. Where’s she been?
— I was locked in the toilet. I was locked in the toilet and I must have hit my head. She lies tall and proud and left and right and the nurse dare not disagree with her.
— Did she call out? Did she not see the red string? The red string in every toilet to help every woman who falls and knocks her head, did she see it? We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Even the security guards are on alert. You’re causing us trouble, Áine says, as if she works at the hospital.
— I need a little sleep. It’s time for a bit of rest.
On cue, on target the nurse offers something to help her fall asleep.
— I’d be very grateful, Our Woman smiles at her. It’s been a busy day.
They are charting her when she wakes: Áine is gone, but her coat remains. Áine must be talking to the doctors, which is great she’ll insist everything they suggest is a fabrication. Áine will want her to stay here and stay here she will.
Episode 19
I had not long put my husband beneath the ground and the first thing I thought to do after handing that holy water baton back to the priest and watching the soil go in on top of him, the first and only thing I could think of was filling up the fields and providing for Jimmy. I had to raise a few cattle, on account of what had happened that day in the car. The day my husband drove the car deliberately in second gear only to annoy me for he knew I had no patience for second.
If only it had been someone more significant than a third cousin we were burying. The public nature of it never agreed with me. It is not the way to be taken, at least Himself was dressed in a suit, begrudgingly, because we had left for the church in some disagreement over Jimmy, who remained behind, still sleeping inside in his room. Himself, unhappy, determined Jimmy should be up, insisted I go in and wake him. But I said let him sleep he was out with his few friends and celebrating that he was home on leave and them all hearing his story of his new life in fatigues and what harm, let the boy rest within. We were late leaving for the funeral on account of me struggling to fasten my husband’s tie. He was a broad man my husband, you have to understand, and it made tying ties more work. It takes longer to tie a tie on a broad man. I’m going to be honest and admit we fought and bickered the whole way to the church — both of us. There were good reasons but this was the first time in as many years that we bickered along such a lengthy stretch of road. Hedge after hedge, barb after barb he came back at me over Jimmy. That I had him spoiled. That he was a soft boy. Him and his fellas. I didn’t like the word soft and fellas. He was driving at something. He was hitting on what had happened when Jimmy brought that watery fella to stay the weekend with us, but I thought we were long beyond it since he would be in a war zone very soon. I don’t know why I kept coming back at him, pleading, yet not giving up, feeding him more to flare his fire, our last ride should have been quiet, calmed, it should have been a ride I would fill in the details after and what might have been said rather than being deafened now by what was actually said. We did not have time to have that fight. My husband only had just over an hour left.