Hidden Symptoms (9 page)

“I can't understand how you could do this to me, Theresa, I simply can't understand.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Sorry's not good enough. After what happened to Francis, if you had thought at all you'd have known that I'd be distracted.”

“Look, I said I'm sorry,” Theresa snapped. “I can do no more. What do you want, blood?” She had never known it was possible to feel so ill.

“You still haven't said where you were, Theresa,” her mother persisted, and Theresa exploded in anger.

“Leave me alone! I'm a grown woman. I'll do as I please and answer to nobody.” A wave of nausea succeeded her rage. She ran from the room and spent the rest of the
day in bed, feeling angry, guilty, confused, worried and very, very sick.

The following Friday evening, at around 7:00 p.m., Robert's telephone rang.

“Bobby?” said an excited voice.

“Yes, Tom?”

“It's Rosie. She's away in to have it.” He was phoning from the Royal Victoria Hospital and said that they had left Tommy with a neighbour. This was part of a prearranged plan by which Robert was to collect and mind Tommy until such time as Tom returned, and so, resigning himself to a long night, he gathered together a book, half a bottle of whiskey, a few chocolates with which to bribe his little nephew, and left.

Tommy was tired but excited and Robert had some difficulty in washing, undressing and coaxing him into bed. He had never babysat before, and was indeed so little used to the company of children that he found it distinctly unnerving. It was a great relief when Tommy was at last tucked between the sheets. Even with the child out of sight, however, Robert still felt ill at ease in the tasteless house which had once been his home, and out of the corner of his eye he looked at the things around him: a few scattered, shabby toys; Tom's ashtray, full to overflowing; a crumpled copy of the previous day's
Irish News,
with the form marked in red ink; and an expanding wooden clothes-horse, draped with tiny, damp vests. In the kitchen, his sister's apron hung from a nail,
pink, limp and sinister. He always hated being in people's homes and rooms in their absence: it seemed an intrusion. He could never defeat the feeling that the people concerned were really dead and that their dross of belongings was all that remained to make vague, painful, pathetic final statements about them. Sometimes deserted rooms could seem even more artificial, like theatre sets at the end of a play's long run, waiting empty and idle for the stagehands to come and dismantle them.

Every small object in the house seemed a talisman capable of evoking lost souls, and he thought back to the time just after his mother's death when Rosie was attempting to sort through her belongings. Robert had come across his sister sitting on a sheepskin rug in their mother's bedroom, sobbing into an old, torn sweater, which he gently removed from her hands. He sent her down to the kitchen and himself started to sort through the contents of the dressing-table, but it made him unspeakably sad. He felt it was a great affront to her memory as he bundled together the shabby clothes, worn shoes and dingy underwear. He remembered the day she had found the contraceptives in his room and felt very conscious both of being “her son” and of falling far short of what she had thought her son ought to be. He wished that among her effects he might come across something surprising, but he found only things which he might well have expected: broken Rosary beads, a few photographs and old birthday cards, a box of cheap, ginger-coloured face-powder, and a Relic of St. Martin de Porres, which was attached to a large safety-pin. He remembered think
ing when he had finished — There: her little soul laid bare before me and I still do not know, I still do not understand.

He watched the late film until the television whined into closedown, and when he unplugged the set he could hear the sound of heavy rain pattering on the pavement. Tommy called for a glass of water, which Robert brought to him. The snout of a grubby Womble protruded over the top of the eiderdown.

“Mammy'll be alright, won't she, Uncle Bobby?”

“Of course,” said Robert, thinking of everything that could possibly go wrong, and imagining his sister screaming in pain as she bled to death. “Your mammy'll be grand, and then you'll have a new baby sister or brother.”

Tommy handed the empty glass back to Robert with a look so full of disbelief and cynicism that his uncle had to restrain himself from saying, “What the hell can you know about childbirth, anyway? You're only five, for God's sake!” Once Robert had told Tommy that there was a fox with big yellow eyes under the bookcase in his flat and Tommy had believed him; and yet when he was told in Bangor to look at the white horses out in the sea he had cried in disappointment because he could see only waves. Robert did not understand children. He went down to the living-room and poured himself a very large whiskey.

He read his book and dozed until 3:30 a.m., when he heard a key being turned in the lock of the front door. Tom had returned.

“It's a wee girl, Bobby,” he said, “an' the both of them's
grand. Two of everything down the side an' one of everything down the middle. That's the way it ought to be, isnit? Whiskey! Good man yerself, Bobby!” They filled two tumblers and sat down by the embers of the dying fire. As Tom drank, his buoyancy gradually subsided. He spoke little, and Robert thought that he appeared rather shaken.

“I seen it all, Bobby,” he said eventually. “I mean, I knew what it was goin' to be like, and the doctors said there was no problem, but I mean … it was rough, Bobby. I mean, it makes ye think.” He paused and sipped at his drink. “Yer own wife, Bobby … an' then … then ye think … yer own Ma …” He paused again and then gave a nervous and violent sob which startled Bobby, and cried, “I mean, Christ, Bobby, it was fuckin' desprit!” After that there was silence for a long time.

It brought Robert back again to the time of his mother's death, when Rosie's grief had manifested itself primarily as anger. She complained bitterly about every little detail; about the times of the removal of the remains and of the funeral mass; about the body being laid out in the bedroom instead of in the front parlour; about the undertaker's failure to provide a black crepe bow for the front door. Her anger had lingered on afterwards, until the day they attempted to find accurate wording and a suitable verse for the in memoriam cards. In this matter Tom and Rosie looked to Robert for guidance, but their tastes conflicted. Robert liked things literary which his sister found incomprehensible or pagan, or both; so he tried instead for something biblical which would be both re
ligious and nicely phrased, but “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of Lord” was coldly met by Rosie, who said, “Really, Robert, we're not Presbyterians.” For well over an hour they struggled hopelessly to find the words they needed until Rosie at last turned violently on Robert and shouted, “And you're fucking well supposed to be a writer!” All three of them were stunned by this outburst, particularly Rosie. They drifted away from the table without looking at each other. The following day she had handed Robert a torn piece of newspaper and mumbled, “What about this?” Robert read it.

He handed the paper back to her and said with a little smile, “That'll do fine.” She also smiled, understanding that she was forgiven and grateful for that forgiveness: but she did not, and never would, apologise to him, mainly because she had a pathological aversion to apologies, but also because she did not fully realize what she had done. She would never know that her words had cut him to the heart.

Tom gradually became more cheerful, and soon Robert had difficulty in restraining him from going up to wake Tommy and tell him that he had a new baby sister. Before going to bed, he thanked Robert for babysitting. “It's true enough, Bobby, family's what counts at the end of the day.”

“Yes,” said Robert drily. He tried to really feel this dryness, but he felt instead genuinely sad. Often he wished that he could cut the stick completely with his family, because they had nothing in common, and yet he knew that he would never do it: he valued them too much. The family was like a living souvenir of an age lost and gone. They reminded him of an antique newspaper which shows how much has changed by simple virtue of its price, print, paper, smell, quaintness and the innocence of its news. For he felt that Rosie and Tom were innocents in the way that people were innocents by chronology, with every generation more world-weary than the one before because of the fresh horrors which they have seen. There was something atavistic in Rosie's and Tom's significance to him, and with great reluctance he had to admit that he needed them in his life.

He settled down to another uncomfortable night upon a sofa, and eventually fell asleep thinking about Kathy.

When he arose the following morning, he found father and son already in the kitchen, dishevelled and delighted, taking tea, bap and Weetabix, chattering excitedly about the new baby, spilling things and laughing. Robert filled
a mug with tea and wearily watched them. Within a week, Rosie would be home again, bringing with her a new person: not merely new to them, but utterly new. Robert found this a sobering thought. Every day people died and babies were born, but these events only appeared to have cosmic significance when one knew the people involved. Eventually he slipped out to the hall telephone and dialled a Belfast number. He waited for a few moments, then to his joy heard the desired and familiar voice.

“Kathy?”

“Yes.”

“It's me, Robert.”

“Oh, hello.”

“When did you get back?”

“Yesterday.”

“Oh. How did you get on in London?”

“Fine. I had a nice time.”

“That's good. Listen, Kathy, when can I see you?”

“Well, I'm not really sure now,” she demurred.

“Tonight, Kathy. Please.” He glanced towards the kitchen door, pressed the receiver closer to his ear and pleaded quietly.

“Please, Kathy. I have to see you. Come to my flat this evening.”

“I don't know, Robert … I'm not sure … Look, leave it with me and I'll see what I can do.”

“Great,” he said. “Listen, Kathy, I …” But she had hung up.

He paused for a moment, then consulted the telephone directory and dialled another Belfast number. Another familiar voice answered.

“Good morning, Theresa,” he said smoothly. “Robert here.”

There was a long silence. “Theresa?”

“Yes?”

“I just thought you might like to know that my sister had her baby last night. A girl.”

“Oh, that's good. I take it they're both well?”

“Yes. She's in the Royal, if you want to see her.”

“I might just do that. Thanks.” There was another silence, which he waited vainly for her to fill, and at last he said insinuatingly, “Kathy's back from London.”

“Yes, I know.”

This piqued him and he again waited in silence, but she evidently shared Rosie's aversion to apologies. He wondered if she remembered coming to his flat, then decided that she was bound to. He considered saying to her bluntly, “Did you get home alright the other morning?” but glanced again at the kitchen door and thought better of it. “Well, that's the score, anyway,” he said lamely.

“Right. Well, thanks for phoning. Goodbye.” She hung up.

Under his breath Robert comprehensively cursed all women, replaced the receiver and returned to the kitchen.

In Boots' baby department, Theresa dithered over bears, rugs, pandas, shawls and tiny hats. The longer she looked,
the less able she was to decide, and if an elderly woman had not eventually pointed to the Baby-Gros and said, “Great yokes, thon', wish we'd had them when mine were wee,” she might never have clinched it, might have wandered off in despair and bought chocolates.

It was four days after Robert's telephone call that Theresa at last mustered the courage and energy to go visit Rosie in hospital. It was to the Royal that Francis's body had been brought for identification, and she had not been back to it since that time. She feared hospitals with a primitive and childish fear. This was where strange people “did” things to you. This was where people's bodies, vulnerable at the best of times, were at their weakest and most pitiful. Everything possible was done in hospitals to maintain life, and still people died.

On reaching the ward, she peeped timidly around the door, afraid that Robert would be there. It was a relief to see Rosie's familiar face amidst the anonymous iron bedsteads, the flowers, cards, Lucozade and grapes; and she was pleased to note that there was no one with her. Rosie was delighted to see Theresa, and proudly handed the baby to her. It fitted snugly in her embrace, and suddenly Theresa felt that she had been waiting unconsciously all that summer, all her life, for that moment when she would take the baby in her arms and feel the perfection of its weight, shape and warmth; as if the baby had been created uniquely for that moment and for her arms.

“Robert thinks it's a dote,” said Rosie, “but he's not the sort as would say.” Theresa did not answer. The
baby wrinkled its face, pressed its tongue between its gum and lower lip and yawned lazily. Its eyes were deep, dark and unseeing, and Theresa thought: the worst fate this child might have would not be to end up like Francis, but to end up like me. Rosie and her baby made love look simple and normal. Theresa wished that it were so and then thought: perhaps it is. Perhaps it is for everyone except me. What if my body were at this moment drained of all blood and pigment, until I became transparent as glass? Then they would see through to my cold, black, hidden heart, and I would be banished at once from this warm and tender room. Feeling unworthy, she sadly handed the baby back to its mother.

Rosie prattled on happily about Tom and Tommy and the baby while Theresa struggled to keep smiling. She had not thought that the visit would be so deeply traumatic, and she left as soon as she decently could. On crossing the hallway, she saw Robert enter the building and was obliged to dart behind a pillar to avoid him. She could not believe that she had had such a narrow escape. Rosie and a baby had been difficult. Rosie and Robert and a baby would have been impossible.

As he walked across the hallway, unconscious that he was being watched, Robert thought how glad he would be when Rosie at last went home, for then he would no longer have to visit the hospital. His mother had died there, and returning to this place had brought that time back to him in a way which he would never have believed possible. The freshness of his memories shocked him. He had forgotten so much, both of the events and the
emotions: now he was forced to live through them all again.

Their mother had remained conscious for less than a day after her admission, then slipped into a deep coma which had lasted for three more days. Days? They had exploded time; he and Rosie had neither eaten nor slept while day seeped into night seeped into day; unending, nightmarish; until all terms to express time became meaningless. He thought that he could remember a life which had been lived out somewhere else, in houses, libraries, pubs and bookshops, and began to wonder if it was a dream or a hallucination, for he felt that he had been and would be in that cramped and overheated room for all eternity. He could not believe that there was a world other than this: Rosie, red-eyed, holding her mother's hand to ensure that the small crucifix which she had tucked into the dying woman's slack fist remained there; and a respirator wheezing and clicking in the corner, as if it were the one dying, rather than the still, frail woman upon the sterile bed. She had been connected up to a heart monitor and they had blankly watched the brilliant green line of light wiggle across the black screen, while little numbers clicked in the corner, high and steady, until a few hours before the end. He had felt at one stage a wave of unexpected anger well up in him, and thought, “If she can't live, why doesn't she die and have done with it?” He wanted to, and was afraid that he would, move quickly forward and pull all the wires and tubes from her body, rip all the machines from their sockets and so get all three of them out of this
horror, push the entire family over the brink into grief and release. It was the first time he had experienced coming to the absolute limits of his endurance, only to find that he had to drag himself on past those limits. He had never known that it was possible to suffer so much and still be alive.

The numbers on the screen had dropped swiftly towards the end. When they clicked to double-zero and the green line became straight, Robert and Rosie turned quickly to each other, and each saw in the other's eyes disbelief and shock.

He walked through the door of the maternity ward. Rosie looked up from the baby and smiled at him.

“Guess who you've just missed?” she said.