*
My husband went to his grave in a hurry to get to Ballina to be with Red the Twit and it was the pressure of that hurry and his rebounding thoughts and guilt over Red and I that caused his heart to over pump itself to a sudden, unexpected halt. At least he died with a purpose in his step and an active thought in his mind, rather than say dying lifting up a bucket or moving a gate.
Had he arrived in Ballina and reached her front door, he would have found Red born again to chastity, so better for him not to greet that rejection and then to have come home to me and Jimmy more dejected and angered. He might have attacked Jimmy that night for he was so viciously angry with him that morning, and he was angry with him for reasons the boy could do nothing about. He was angry with him for having the audacity to love a man or several of them. He was angry with me for having the determination to love my son in spite of that audacity. I wanted to tell him at times: do you think this is easy for me? Do you not think a mother has romantic ideas of sending her son into the arms of a woman she can then disagree and fight over her grandchildren and know that her son has married beneath himself and that he’ll pride his mother above any woman he ever takes into his bed? Do you not think I have cried while listening to innocuous country music on the radio of rodeo love and knowing that my Jimmy will only have men for company and that his life will be ruined because of it? I have come to terms with it fuelled by the determination to save him from the financial ruin.
That is what I have done about it.
Then to go and die on me. In so public a manner. It was the battering I deserved. I see it now. I walked into the wall that day.
Episode 20
Whatever of Bina’s promise, her pretend son delivers Our Woman to a different fate. Drops her at the hospital gate, and just before he flees, could she give him a few Euro for petrol? Our Woman would clank him about the head, except she’s minus an arm. A concerned citizen of Letterfrack lifted her up, bringing her in to disaster, for — I found this woman at the gate confused — when they find you at the gate they pay too much attention to you. Precisely what she does not want. Breeze in, get a bandage on it, breeze out, and have the lad wait for you in the car park.
Bina had instructed:
— Give him one Euro.
— the paper.
— tell him don’t move!
Our Woman told him, stay here, don’t move, but watched him disappear, grinding his clutch unhealthy as he departed. The hospital claim she is incoherent. Her story doesn’t make sense. They seem convinced her husband or son had beaten her. She insists they are both deceased. No one had beaten her. Top of her thigh odd place to get a bruise — the nurse. You’re awful cold, what has you so cold, how long were you outside? — the doctor. Do you know where you are? — unidentified blur of a person.
It is an awful messy show with none of them saying what the other wanted to hear and it worked out the way these predicaments do, Our Woman again interned on the ward protesting there was a young man waiting outside for her and as soon as he had the packet of cigarettes finished, off into the dark he would drive. I only need a bandage, Our Woman proclaims. At least leave me on a trolley like they show on the news.
*
Bina sits unhappy. She ponders aloud how it all went wrong, while her biro did a word search. The cover of the puzzle book showed a woman in a low-cut top who looked like she’d catch her death wandering in these parts thus adorned. Our Woman looked at the woman on the puzzle book and wondered where did she live?
— Lookit, that little fecker I’ve taken him off his retainer … Bina rattling. I’ve told him if I ever see him I’ll take a stick to him. What right had he dumping you at the gate like silage. He’s a fucker.
Bina’s filthy tongue is up! Our Woman loves it when Bina’s filthy tongue is up. All will be well.
— Honestly they’ve no respect for nothing anymore. It’s the mobiles and the tee-shirts and the satellites is doing it. You can’t trust any, only your own kind, and even them you can’t trust. You can trust no one do you hear me now?
Bina’s talking about Joanie who’s over there in deep conversation with the nurse.
— She’s plotting to have you locked up as we speak. Well I’m not moving, says Bina. If they try to move ya I’ll fight them to the ground. I’d nearly get a gun if it might save ya.
— You’ll end up in the bed beside me.
— That’s right. I will. We’ve to be sly about this. You’ve to tell that nurse on the QT I’m your sister, any form needing signing is only to be signed by me. I’ll take everything they give me within to Ballina and have my solicitor go over it and see what it is they’ve planned for you. Don’t let them put anything into your mouth unless it’s written down.
Bina pauses. Our Woman turns her head over on the pillow.
— And whatever you do let them put nothing up the other end either. That’s sometimes how they sneak it into you.
Our Woman has understood she is surrounded by people who long to shove things into her and this will be her fight. Only Bina is aware of the scale of it. Thank Christ for Bina.
— Eat up the Quality Street, Our Woman tells Bina. I hate the sight of them.
*
Bina blames Joanie. She blames Joanie for Our Woman ending up back on the ward. She tells Our Woman Joanie is having too many chats with the nurses and this will encourage them to lock her up. Joanie blames Bina for sitting too long in the chair. Would she not get up and let another sit down? Joanie thinks Bina’s greedy eating all Our Woman’s Quality Street. As Bina is blaming Joanie, and Joanie is blaming Bina, Our Woman inquires where does Bina think the woman on the front of the puzzle book lives.
— For the love of God, Bina hushes her, don’t ask me such a thing, or they’ll have the sheets off ya and will put ya in the can. Be quiet, she said. Be quiet so I can hear what your one is gibbering on about over there.
*
I will never know why I returned to Red the Twit for a second audience. It remains the clearest indication I was raving out of my mind during that time, for what woman in her right mind would seek to convene with someone who has warmed the bed with her husband. Honestly, I ask you. Do you know any? I do not.
My second encounter was different. Unannounced, early I landed for I wanted to disrupt her day the way she’d disrupted months of my life. Bonier than I remembered, tobacco clavicle bony, pipettes of smoke sucked in — along with my husband — rather than food. That she might over pull on her tobacco stick, swallow her tongue and choke to death before she could answer the questions I had brought to her.
I gave no explanation at the door, stood silent ’til she admitted me. She’d be in to me in a minute, and out for a cigarette she went. Gave me the chance to gander and I saw what I imagined I’d see. As spare as her charm, so her house sat. Evidence of magazines, the holy book, index cards, paper stuck up here and there with instructions to repent. Little in the way of clues to her life, because maybe she didn’t have a life beyond the collection and the borrowing of other women’s husbands. A pair of shoes dropped by the couch. The heels on them scuffed. Pop socks bunched into their toes.