From Under the Overcoat (13 page)

IT PULSED. EDNA SWORE
the little red $100,000 Scratchy beat like a tiny human heart in the lining of her leather handbag. Every time she walked past it, there on the sideboard in the kitchen, Edna felt a tingle at the back of her head, just below
her hairline. Elation, followed smartly by a rush of bile as her stomach churned.

It didn’t just affect her when she was in the kitchen. Edna was all over the place, mood wise, after her win. One morning, she’d wake up feeling fine. She’d get on the bathroom scales and see she’d lost weight. She’d spend the rest of the day browsing magazines. She could afford anything she wanted — including surgery to reduce her size. She celebrated the revelation by finishing off a block of chocolate over lunch.

The next day, she’d catch Henry giving her the look again; he was getting clever about hiding it, but she was one step ahead. She was on to his subtle strategies for exiting the business end of marriage.

He no longer handed her a towel as she was getting out of the shower, for example. Instead, she found it already waiting when she went into the bathroom. Folded neatly on the vanity, one time with a little
I love Edna
note scribbled in his shaky hand.

‘I know what you’re up to, Henry Carson,’ she’d muttered, throwing the note down the toilet.

Edna wondered whether it was possible to have a relapse of menopause. God knows,
that
had been a strange enough time; she’d done some odd things then. But nothing like checking a sixty-five-year-old man’s drawers for condoms, which is what she did one afternoon when Henry was at bridge.

After she’d gone through the entire chest, Edna sat on the end of their bed and cried. She couldn’t stop. ‘Look at the state of you,’ she said to her reflection in the mirror. Her face had puff ed out, her eyes swollen to narrow slits. ‘Imagine if you’d actually found some.’

The Scratchy stayed in the zipped pocket of her handbag. She couldn’t get it out again. Truth of it was, she couldn’t even bring herself to use that particular handbag.

IRENE FALTON’S BATHROOM IS
the size of a suburb. Edna is in a hurry to get to the toilet.

After, she tiptoes to the door and shuts it properly. Clicks the lock. Through the open window, she can hear the distant murmur of Henry and Irene’s conversation.

She washes her hands at the enormous basin. There are gleaming white tiles everywhere, shiny chrome fittings stamped with a name Edna can’t pronounce. In front of her, behind a mirror, is Irene Falton’s vanity cabinet.

Edna opens it. Face creams, tiny bottles of potions. Edna picks out one of the little bottles. The writing’s in another language.

So many perfumes — names she knows — Chanel, Yves St Laurent, Oscar de la Renta — yes, she’s seen them all in the magazines. She could have bought any one of these perfumes. She could have bought them all.

Edna takes the stopper out of the bottle of Yvresse and sniff s. It is the same colour as her pee and a thought crosses her mind. But she puts the stopper back and cradles the elegant bottle in her big hand. Like King Kong cradling Fay Wray.

Downstairs, outside, the chatter continues. They won’t care how long she takes, Edna thinks. They’ll chat on until the cows come home, Henry Carson and Irene Falton.

Edna looks at her reflection. Behind her, along the back
wall of the bathroom, there’s another mirror. If Edna gets the angles right, she can check out her bed-hair damage.

Irene Falton certainly has a thing for mirrors. Twisting this way and that reminds Edna of the nastiness yesterday, downstairs, in the bedroom of the B and B.

It was early and Edna was still in bed, dozing on and off. Henry was standing at the big mirror in the bedroom. He’d got up while she was still asleep, showered and dressed. He was combing his hair.

Edna pretended to sleep but kept an eye on him.

He kept combing the same bit. Edna thought about saying something. Then she noticed that his eyes weren’t on his own reflection.

They weren’t on her either. Not this time. The bedroom curtains were open. Outside the window, Irene Falton was gardening. She was dressed in an old T-shirt and shorts. She was bending over, tending to the flowerbed. Henry was looking at her, at the view down the front of her T-shirt. Irene whistled softly, and dug and planted, and Henry watched her in the bedroom mirror, his comb hovering above his head.

ON HER WAY BACK
down from the bathroom, Edna stops again to look at the Lladro dancers. She picks them up, feels the weight of them. She puts two fingers around the woman’s fragile ankle and snaps off her foot. She tucks the tiny piece of pale porcelain down her bra. It is cooling and sharp against her breast.

SITTING ON THE END
of a bed bawling her eyes out. Because
she had not found condoms hidden in her husband’s chest of drawers. No wonder Henry turned away from her. Quite possibly, it wasn’t about her weight at all. Maybe he simply didn’t fancy cuddling up close to a lunatic.

Edna heaved herself off the bed. It was four-thirty. Bridge finished around five. Henry would be home in less than an hour. She went into the kitchen and took the handbag down off the dresser.

‘Everything is changing.’

She said it out loud to the handbag. It sat before Edna on the kitchen table. The late afternoon light filtered through the kitchen curtains, catching floating dust. Edna would not have been surprised if the handbag spoke back to her — the leathery folds forming supple lips, mouthing something profound, or crazy, or irrelevant. She sat for a bit longer, just in case it had something to say.

She thought about saying something to the deceased young Graham Burling. It was against the rules, but if things were changing, it wouldn’t hurt to close that chapter of her life off for good. Edna couldn’t picture his face. Graham was a name and an age now. Nothing more.

On one of her better days after the Scratchy win, Edna had clipped an advertisement out of the newspaper. It was for a five-week, seven-country cruise. The cost was $14,000. Now she pulled the clipping out of the bottom drawer of the dresser and dialled the number on the page. When they asked her how she’d like to pay, she read out the twelve numbers of their credit card.

Her hands were shaking as she opened her handbag. The little zip inside the lining was still closed. Edna pulled it
gently open and took the red Scratchy out of the pocket.

They were like little soldiers — three platoons standing to attention across the top of the card. $100,000 $100,000 $100,000. Edna ran her finger across them all.

There were remnants of the silvery covering on the three boxes. Edna remembered how she’d just focused on uncovering the numbers, standing there in the bookshop, scraping away with her coin. How she’d stopped, her heart pounding, as the identical digits revealed themselves. Now, with her little fingernail, she scraped the rest of the silver covering off the winning boxes.

She was being so careful. It was just a tiny slip. Maybe her shaking hands were to blame. That was the logical reason for what happened next. Her little fingernail slid down the surface of the card, through the middle of the right-hand box on the second row. The nail picked up all the silver covering, like a spatula clean through a bowl of chocolate icing. Clearly revealed, from under the silver covering of that fourth box, was $2.

When Henry came in from bridge, Edna was still sitting at the table. Her hands were folded in her lap. She was looking at the newspaper clipping. The Scratchy sat next to it.

Henry picked up the Scratchy. Glanced at the numbers revealed. Edna heard a sound come from the back of his throat; a little choke. Then he turned the card over and read the back.

‘Oh Edna,’ he said. He sounded quite lost. As though he’d been the one to let his finger slip.

‘
THAT BATHROOM CERTAINLY IS
something, Irene. All those mirrors, makes the room feel twice the size.’ Edna walks down the steps, back into the heat of the day. ‘Feels like you’ve got company, wherever you go. That must be nice for you.’

Silence.

‘Speaking of going. Henry?’

Henry frowns, cocks his head to one side, smiles at Edna, then at Irene.

‘Leave, Henry. I’m talking about going home. Not going to the bathroom. Irene doesn’t want to stand on her doorstep all night.’

Thin laughter. Irene and Henry’s laughter.

Edna returns to the car and gets in. The seatbelt can wait until the last minute. She watches Henry pull his wallet out of his back pocket. He takes out the wad of notes in a rubber band.

‘It’s all there Irene — I tied it up so I didn’t spend it.’

He laughs and Irene laughs and Edna has had enough of laughter. Besides, it’s not all there. Edna’s taken three crisp twenty-dollar notes from the bundle. She did it at the café that morning, after they visited the cash machine down on the waterfront. She slipped the notes out after Henry counted it, while he was at the counter getting her another piece of chocolate brownie. Irene Falton would not be the kind of woman to count money on her front doorstep, Edna thought, and she was right.

Edna feels the first stab of regret as Henry walks towards the car, towards her, in his pulled-up-high jeans. She’s not sure yet whether she’s sorry about the money, or the Lladro.
But it’s a positive sign, she thinks. A good sign, the regret coming so quickly. One day it might come soon enough to prevent her bad behaviour in the first place.

Henry’s face is all hope, as he gets in the car.

‘Did you like that, Edna?’ he asks, resting his scrawny gardener’s fingers over her big soft hand, over the puckers of her knuckles. ‘We should go away again, soon. Do you think?’

Edna doesn’t trust her voice, so she nods. Then she closes her eyes, lets her head fall back against the headrest. Henry is looking at her, she can feel it. Feel his eyes roaming. In a sleepy kind of way, she turns away.

A ‘DUBLINERS' STORY
A REGRETTABLE SLIP OF
THE TONGUE

M
y name is Gretta Conroy and I am dead. I'll say that to you right now. I've been gone a very long time. If you're not interested in the views of the departed, then we'll just say
sláinte
and you can flick on to the next story.

You're still here. Are you not bored by stories that bang around in the past? I'm not talking about last week, understand, but more than one hundred years ago, and in Ireland, no less. I won't blame you in the least if you're having your doubts. This is, after all, a book of modern stories, a New Zealand book. You are, more than likely, a New Zealander yourself. I've had a quick peek at the rest of the stories and it's true, this tale is absolutely the odd one out.

In fact, I've muscled myself in here altogether uninvited. That first heading up there, the one crossed out, well, it sat there for more than a month, you know, and it never came to anything at all. That is the truth. I've left it there as proof that even though I've taken a grand liberty, it really was an open invitation to someone like myself. I've waited a long time for such an opportunity. Therefore I won't be vacating this lovely blank page, not now.

So. My name is Gretta Conroy. I was married to Mr Gabriel Conroy.

I'll wait up a bit for you here; I can see that you're straining with the memory of something. Go on, take your mind back to sleepy classrooms and books that smell like the bottom drawer.

Are you with me? You're not thinking of that Godforsaken tome of eternal meandering
Ulysses
, are you? You'd have an elephant of a memory if that's where you've dragged my name from, God bless you. I only got a single significant mention in
Ulysses
and even then it was by Leopold Bloom, sitting constipated on a toilet, passing the time parroting his wife and dreaming up ways of making a few extra pence.

Go back a bit further. You might have cut your Joycean teeth on
Dubliners
. And if you did, you might have persevered to the end of the book, to a story called ‘The Dead'. Conversely, you might have skipped the entire middle section and taken yourself directly to the end of the book, because we all do that don't we. It wasn't too long after publication that the world and its uncle decided that ‘The Dead' was something of a literary importance so it's the obvious thing to do.

Either way, that's where we first met, you and I. On the pages of ‘The Dead'.

‘
THE DEAD'. THE MORKANS'
party. O yes, wasn't I the quiet one there! I was in the company of Gabriel's family, you'll recall. I'd learned to hold my tongue with the Conroys and the Morkans over the years.

There's a certain excitement, now I feel I have an entitle ment to digress at will. I don't imagine any of the great scholars will be taking notice of this, the ramblings of a
culchie
.

I'm taking it that you've remembered, all the fuss about ‘The Dead'. How could you not? These days the Morkans' house at 15 Usher's Island is quite the tourist attraction. And they made a movie out of the story later on, and while I'm on about that I would like to say that Anjelica Huston looks nothing like me, but never mind as she's a handsome woman herself.

If you haven't remembered, or you haven't read
Dubliners
, there are three options for you at this point. You could dash off now and read ‘The Dead' and that's the thing I'd advise; bring yourself up to speed.

You could jump ship and rightfully complain to your bookseller that ‘A Regrettable Slip of the Tongue' does not sit well with the other stories in this book. Read the rest of the book first, then take it back. You might get a refund.

Or you could just read on, and I'll try to fill in the gaps along the way.

THE YEAR WAS
1904
, that's as I recall it; thereabouts in any case. Gabriel and I took a night away from the children and
went to a party in Dublin. It was known as the Christmas Dance, but it was always held just after Christmas, in the first week of January, some time close to the Feast of the Epiphany. We took a room at the lovely Gresham Hotel on Sackville Street, which you will now know as O'Connell Street. The party was at Kate and Julia Morkan's house on Usher's Island. Kate and Julia were Gabriel's aunties, sisters to his mother Ellen.

It was a fine evening, but towards the end, just as we were leaving, a guest sat down at the piano and played ‘The Lass of Aughrim'. At first I couldn't remember the name of the tune, I had to ask the pianist. It didn't matter anyway, the name of it — from the moment he struck the first notes, my mind travelled back, back, and I was a young girl again.

You see, a childhood sweetheart of mine, one Michael Furey, had sung that song to me. I was living with my grandmother in Galway city at the time, and we used to go walking together, Michael and I. And the night before I was due to move up to Dublin, to the convent, Michael threw stones at my bedroom window and then, in the pouring rain, sang ‘The Lass of Aughrim'.

Michael worked at the gasworks. He was delicate. He died of consumption just a week after the night when he sang to me. He was only seventeen. I was distraught when I heard the news, and I'm afraid to say that I got myself upset about it all over again that night of the Morkans' party, all those years later, remembering Michael and the terrible tragedy of his early passing.

In fact, I cried myself to sleep that night in the Gresham, what with the memory of it, and the exhaustion of the party,
and the chill of the night's air reminding me of that boy standing outside in the rain, singing.

While all this was happening, Gabriel had got himself hot and bothered. He'd been the centre of attention at the party; he was the favourite nephew of Kate and Julia. It was Gabriel-this and Gabriel-that all evening. So he was hot and bothered and he wanted the ride, once we got back to the hotel. Before you object … that's not my choice of a word, but one of the advantages of being dead is that you have the ability to adapt to changes in the lingo. I rather like that one.

So, yes, by the lights of the time now, that was exactly the situation.

I concede my own error of judgement in the palaver that followed. My general mistake — what a mistake it turned out to be — was sharing the story of Michael Furey with Gabriel.

My specific mistake was the exact words I used.

I think he died for me
.

That's what I said to Gabriel, when he asked me whether it was the consumption that took Michael.

I think he died for me
, I replied, in full melodrama, sobbing and heaving on the hotel bed.

Well, of course the boy didn't die for me. If you're that sick, a dash out into the rain to sing a song is not going to make the slightest difference to the outcome other than hurry it along. So for the life of me I don't know why I said
I think he died for me
.

Maybe because — and I am being entirely honest with you here — I was just a bit bored by Gabriel that night at
the Morkans'. The old aunties fawning over him, insisting he sit at the head of the table, that only he could carve the goose. And himself delivering a pompous Christmas speech supposedly full of insightful thoughts about the state of Ireland. From One Who Travelled Regularly To Europe. But really illustrating to everyone the considerably high opinion he had of himself.

Everything was about Gabriel.

But there it was, said.
I think he died for me
. And there was poor Gabriel, no longer hopeful for the ride and entirely getting the wrong end of the stick over Michael Furey, assuming Michael had been my one true love.

HERE'S WHAT SHOULD HAVE
happened the very next morning. We should have woken together, Gabriel and I, in that pretty room at the Gresham, well before our eight o'clock call from downstairs. We should have laughed about the previous night. I would have promised not to listen to that mournful tune ‘The Lass of Aughrim' ever again. Gabriel would have got a ride, and many more after because, although he was putting on the weight, he was still a fine man.

But when I opened my eyes, Gabriel was not in the bed. And when I sat up and looked around, he wasn't in the room either. Sometime during the night, he'd packed up and gone.

I got up, dressed and packed my own bag. By then it was nearly eight o'clock. All the while, I was expecting Gabriel to come back. I sat in the room and waited until I heard the maids outside the door, then I went downstairs.

Gabriel had left me a note at the desk.
At the Morkans', an 
emergency. Your cab arrives at eight fifteen. I'll follow on
.

I went home to Monkstown on my own.

The thoughts going through my mind, in that rattling old cab! Where on earth had he gone? That note was an absolute fib, that much was obvious. I kept my face to the window, peering out, expecting to see Gabriel walking along the road somewhere. There was no sign of him. By the time the cab reached Merrion, on the shores of Dublin Bay, I gave up looking.

It was a good five miles from the centre of Dublin to Monkstown — it doesn't sound much nowadays, but in a horse and cab it took a fair time. Long enough, surely, for me to start feeling annoyed with this pathetic carry-on. What was I going to tell Tom and Eva, when I arrived home alone without their da?

I wondered whether he might be there already, recounting the story of the Christmas party to the children. They'd begged to come with us. But when I went through the gates, I knew at once he hadn't arrived. The snow lay thick on the ground, with no fresh tracks or footprints leading to the house.

The children ran out to meet me, asking where their da was and did I bring something for them. I made up some story about him being held up back in Dublin and then bustled them inside to the warm.

GABRIEL DIDN'T COME BACK
, not that day, nor the one after. It was three days before he brought himself home. By that time, I was furious with the man.

Three long days and nights had given me time for great
reflection on the state of affairs between Gabriel Conroy and myself. You know how the mind can go all over the place if you permit it. After venturing into the realms of worry and concern, it took itself right back to our courtship, and in particular to the extreme reluctance on the part of Gabriel's mother Ellen to accept me into the Conroy family.

Country-cute — that's what she called me. Never to my face, but loud enough for me to hear, many times. On account of my coming from farming people in Connacht. The Conroys themselves were sophisticated Dubliners, Gabriel's father being with the Board of Port and Docks.

Gabriel had been to the university before becoming a teacher and Constantine, Gabriel's brother, was a Catholic curate in Balbriggan. Clearly Ellen Conroy had envisioned a more sophisticated wife for her only marriageable son.

O, to be sure, she accepted me finally. She had to, as it was my country-cute self that gave her her only grandchildren. It was also my country-cute self that nursed her, in my own home, from the onset of her illness to her death. But that patronising little utterance sat there between us, wide as the River Liffey, right until she took her last miserable breath.

So yes. Furious. That's how I was by the time he returned. A cab pulled up mid-morning and dropped him at the gate. He trundled through the snow to the front door. The children were upstairs playing. They didn't see him arrive. I was pleased for that when I let him in.

He hung his coat and scarf and hat above the line up of galoshes in the hallway. Then he turned to me.

‘Well?' I said to him. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?'

I thought he'd fallen ill. His face was a ghostly grey, none
of the usual high colour in his cheeks. His hair had slumped with greasiness and he had the dark stubble of a beard. His clothes were crumpled and stained. I saw there was a tear in the sleeve of his good coat.