Bullfighting (14 page)

—What's this? she asked.

She turned on the light.

She was holding a head on the palm of her open hand. A small head.

—A chicken's head, he said.

—Where did you get it?

—I found it.

He was a clown, an eejit; he'd hidden it under his socks.

—It's Barbara's, she said.—Isn't it?

—Barbara's head would be a bit bigger, he said.

It didn't work; she didn't smile.

—Did the fox drop it in the garden? she asked.

She was giving him an escape route, offering him a reasonable story. But it was the wrong one. He'd found a chicken's head and hidden it? He wasn't going to admit to the lie. It was sad, perverse.

—No, he said.

—Well, she said, and looked away.—What happened?

—I bit it off, he said.

She looked at him again. For quite a while.

—What was that like?

—Great, he said.—Great.

—
I
love you but I think I'm dying.

This was what he said as he came in the back door. Then he turned around and walked back out. Maeve thought he was leaving her. He'd said he was the night before. Until she saw the way he was walking. And she knew it: he
was
dying. He walked like he'd been stabbed, away from the door, out into the garden. It was after nine but still bright enough, early September. His back to her, crouched, he moved quickly, sideways, clutching something – his stomach. The back door was a slider, all glass. She watched him move down the garden. She waited for him to fall. She waited for the blood.

But he didn't fall.

—Are you alright?

She stayed at the door.

—Jim?

He'd gone to the end of the garden. The sun was down, behind the high back wall. He was dark, crouched, still moving. She saw now; he was coming back.

—Are you okay?

She moved towards him.

—No, he said.

—Who stabbed you?

—What?

He looked down at his hands, at the way he was holding himself.

There was no blood. She could see that. And that made it worse, more serious – internal.

—I wasn't stabbed, he said.

—What's wrong?

—I'm dying, he said.—I don't know.

He couldn't stand straight; he didn't try. The pain was unbelievable. Literally that – unbelievable. He had to move, keep moving; that was all he knew.

—Will I phone for a doctor?

She heard herself and knew how stupid it sounded.

—Or an ambulance? Jim?

He was walking away again, back down the garden. Crouching. He didn't answer.

He hadn't felt good all day. But that was all. There'd been the hangover but that was gone by late morning, before twelve. Then he'd realised there was something more, something wrong, nudging at him, in his groin. He wasn't sure exactly what the
groin
was, where it started and ended. Somewhere in below his stomach, there was something poking at him, or stuck. Nothing too bad, nothing to make him think that he wasn't well or that he'd soon be dead.

Maeve didn't bother with the phone. She could hear herself trying to explain it to their GP, a waste of time. She grabbed the car keys and went back out to Jim. She locked the back door.

—Jim.

It was darker now. She couldn't see if he'd heard her.

—Jim.

—What?

It didn't sound like him.

—Come on, she said.

—What?

—We'll go to the hospital.

—Which one?

—You're dying, for God's sake. Does it matter?

—Yes, it does, he said.

He knew, as he spoke. He probably wasn't dying. He felt robbed.

 

The nurse took a look at him, bent over, holding onto the side of the trolley, and she told him.

—That's a kidney stone.

—Is it serious?

—You'll be grand.

He knew what it was now, and the pain stayed bad but bearable.

—There'll be a doctor around in a minute, she said.

He got up on the trolley and tried to lie back. He held onto the bars and thought his heat would melt them. The place was packed and dreadful but the nurse came back with a doctor who, without the white lab coat, would have looked like a kid who filled bags in a supermarket. He pressed Jim's stomach and told him nothing, but gave him a jab, some sort of painkiller.

Ten minutes later, the pain was there but lurking behind a soft wall. Jim could breathe and try to get comfortable. But he was in hell and he'd never recover. The nurse or the doctor, probably the doctor, had left the curtain open. Jim watched a junkie die. A girl, on a trolley. Her pals, two skinny girls in tracksuits, screamed and forgot about her, and screamed again.

—Tracey!

A security guard pushed them out. He seemed to know them. They came back in, up the wheelchair ramp, and screamed again and lit their smokes and got thrown out. Jim watched the ambulance men give up, and put the blanket over the dead girl's face, and they wheeled her away somewhere. Her friends came in, sat in two orange bucket seats and fell asleep. While the girl died and disappeared, a woman near him moaned, men puked, a guy who seemed to have lost a hand, or at least the fingers – the bandage was huge and blood-soaked – tried to eat a bag of crisps. Jim closed his eyes but it didn't work. The noise alone was worse; he had to watch. He'd never sleep. He wanted to be rescued.

 

The night before, the Thursday, they'd had a fight. Another one. A fight they drank into. It was fuelled by the red wine they knocked back before they ate and as they ate. The third glass brought Jim up to date; he caught up with the state he'd been in the night before. The edges he'd carried all day were gone and he was back where he'd left off, where he'd lost interest or consciousness – he couldn't remember. One minute they were chatting away carefully – his day, her day – and then, like that, he knew it was all shite. They sat with the plates on their laps – they didn't have a table. He listened to something about her mother's aunt, a fall in the shower; some old woman he'd met once, two years before at the wedding. He listened for a while – because that was what he did, that was what
you
did. The aunt's broken leg equalled two of his funny incidents at work.

—You're not listening.

—I am.

—You're not.

—I am. Your auntie broke her leg. Go on.

—No.

—Go on. She slid on the soap.

—You're a callous bastard.

—I didn't put the soap there.

—Everything's a laugh, she said.

She put her plate on the floor so she could get to her glass.

He said nothing.

—Everything has to be a laugh.

—She slid on the soap, he said.—Go on. I'm all ears. Was it Palmolive or Lifebuoy?

She stared at him.

—You're such a prick, she said.

—Will she be okay? he asked.

The question surprised her – he could tell. She bent down for her plate. He was winning.

—You don't care, she said.

—I do.

—You don't.

—I can't fuckin' win, can I?

She sighed. She put a fork-load into her mouth. He watched her eating. Chicken curry.

She sighed again.

—Okay, she said.—You win.

—Win what?

—Whatever you want.

—This is ridiculous.

—Everything's ridiculous, she said.

—You said it.

—Yeah.

It was the same row, and the same conclusion. He cornered her. She cried; sometimes he cried. He believed everything he said, although he'd no idea now what they'd been arguing about, or if it had been a proper argument; it was gone. But this was it, every night – most nights.

But the plate was new. It landed at his feet, and then he saw her throw it, after it hit the floor – her movement made sense, and her face. She held the plate like a Frisbee, then sent it his way and regretted it. Her other hand tried to catch it. It landed flat and it didn't break.

He leaned out of his chair and banged his heel down on it.

—There, he said.—That's how you break a plate.

But it wasn't broken. And he didn't try again. The back of his shoe and his trouser cuff were covered in the curry.

She laughed.

 

Friday night, in the back garden, he was walking again. He had to keep moving, outrun the pain.

—It depends which of the hospitals is on call, he said, as he went back down the garden.—If it's Beaumont, okay. But Blanchardstown. Too far. I'll never make it.

This was in 1990, at the tail end of the last recession. There wasn't enough money to keep all the hospitals open.

—I'll check, she said.

She went back in and got the phone book out from under all the other crap. She found the number for Beaumont, the nearest hospital to them. She could even hear a siren outside as she dialled, an ambulance on its way there, or coming from there. Someone else dying.

He heard it too. Was it coming for him?

He could think. He wasn't dying. There was something seriously wrong but it wasn't getting worse. As long as he kept moving.

She was back out. He watched her lock the back door.

—The Mater, she said.

—On call?

—Yeah.

—Where's the ambulance gone?

—What ambulance?

—I heard one.

She was holding his arm, moving him off the grass.

—That was for someone else, she said.—I'm driving you in. It'll be quicker.

She'd had nothing to drink. Nothing all day.

—I don't know, he said.

They were off the grass, at the side of the house. Behind the car.

—What?

—If I can sit in the car, he said.

—We have to get you there, she said.

She'd unlocked the passenger door, still holding his arm.

She helped him in; he felt her fingers on his neck.

—Thanks.

—It's okay, you're fine.

He couldn't sit properly. He couldn't sit back, or put on his belt. She got the car started, reversed slowly out, then straightened the car and headed for the main road.

—How's it going?

—Okay.

—Won't be long.

There was no traffic; they met nothing on the roundabout.

—I don't know if I can do this, he said.—Sorry. His hand was on the handle of the door.

—Don't!

—What?

—Open the door!

—I wasn't going to.

She drove off the roundabout and looked in the rear-view mirror.

—Oh Christ!

—What?

—The baby!

—Oh Jesus, oh sweet Jesus.

—The baby.

—It'll be grand. Turn back.

He couldn't believe it. They'd forgotten the baby. It was horrible. But the shock wasn't that they'd forgotten. The real shock was that they'd never thought.

The baby. It –
she
didn't even have a name. That wasn't true, of course. The baby did have a name. Holly was the baby's name and pretending she didn't have a name was just some sort of weird sentimentality. As the car went over a pothole and the jolt shifted whatever was inside killing him – the blade out and straight back in – he knew it was just self-pity. He loved the baby.
They
loved the baby. He was dying, and they'd forgotten to bring her with them. That was all.

—She'll be grand, he said.—We only left her a few minutes.

—Yeah, she said.

They were back on the roundabout, and off the roundabout, a minute from home; the road was clear. And he knew something, in the minute it took to get to the house: they were happy.

S
he'd been gone for a couple of hours, most of the afternoon – he wasn't sure – but she looked like she'd been in Spain. Or the Sahara. She'd been tied down and tortured, under a big round sun. She was suddenly tanned.

He watched her taking off her coat. He didn't know what colour her hair was, the name for it. He sat still and said nothing.

It went back.

They hadn't coped well. He knew that.

His ear had been the start of it. Or a start. Years ago now. Mary had been kissing him. But she'd stopped and he'd heard something, trapped in her throat.

—What's wrong? he'd said.

—Nothing, she'd said.—Your ear.

She'd stiffened beside him, but then he felt her kind of unfold, relax again.

—My ear?

—There's a hair on it.

—Hair? he said.—There's hair in everyone's ear.

—On, she said.

—What?

—It's
on
your ear.

—On?

He saw her nod.

—I'll have to see this, he said, and got up.

But he couldn't see it. He put his face right up to the bathroom mirror. He turned his head, so his ear was nearly the only thing he could see. But he couldn't see a hair. He took off his glasses. And he saw it. All on its own. At the bottom, the lobe. Like a moustache hair. He put the glasses back on. The hair was gone. He took them off. And there it was.

He went back to the bedroom. He got into the bed. She was pretending to be asleep, breathing like a baby in an ad.