Malarky (38 page)

I could not tell if she did not like it. I was desperate to consult Beirut on two things I needed to know: had he seen any soldiers, any American uniforms in Beirut, might he have seen Jimmy somehow and I wanted his opinion on horses and tried to get it. But his mother pulled the curtain around his bed and if I heard rightly she commenced beating him around the head and I saved his life.

—She's killing him nurse, that witch is in there killing him, she is battering him dead. Shortly after that Beirut was moved again and my wanderings began.

I agree I shrieked. I did shriek alright. You're disturbing the patients and when you disturb the others you go to isolation. But you know they didn't take me. They took Beirut. Then the talk changed to sending me home.

A degree of wandering would be essential if I was to find my way to the things I wanted to find. Jimmy. Beirut. The wandering began at Beirut. In those wards that are nothing to boast of, so who wouldn't be wandering in them?

Bread, bread, bread. Beirut, Beirut, Beirut. I told you not to come out here. My hip is grown so stiff I might never move from here again.

Arra what about? How long have I lain here? What am I thinking? Has my brain gone on holiday to France? The phone, why the phone of course. The Áine mobile.

To call would be to startle, to text would convey less alarm. But who? Who can be trusted not to serve her up to them in Ballinasloe. There's only Bina. And Bina, who believes everyone is listening to her, has no mobile, but there's her son. There's the son of Bina, the way there's the son of God. Except he's not Bina's son, he's her neighbour's son because Bina said the thought of having children gave her the shivers and she'd never give into the shivers and anyway the fella beside her, the son of her neighbour, him who she never names, is like a son to her.

We've an understanding, he and I, is all she'll say. The speculation is she buys him drink for his trouble. Bina has taken the pledge. He's drinking for the two of us, is all she'll say. Our Woman texts the son of Bina with her left hand, very difficult in the light and circumstances, grateful for a man held hostage to his thirst.

Stuck in the Get Bina to come up wud ya Hurry now. Good man.

7 mins until she has a reply.

Who are the fuc are ya?

Jus get Bina wud ya. In trubl. Urgent. D ya hear?

It's another ten minutes or more. The phone rings and she can hear Bina confused about what to push on the phone and the young fella sayin' push nuttin jus' speak. Inhales, exhales, glory be to God and she'll be up and by
Christ she'll bring nobody, only this lad here for we'll never hear the end of it and sure we'd never see you agin. It'll be Ballinasloe if this gets out. Put your face down in the mud and don't let your eyes catch the light, Bina says. The phone goes dead.

I could not blame my husband the first time he incarcerated me for I was indeed behaving strange. I was up to hijinks with Halim and mebbe it was that sent me tumbling. Himself knew it, I knew it, but he was clever, he tried to get me into that hospital without them knowing it. Except I went ahead and told them.

—My husband saw a young man pulling at himself on my doormat and that is why I am here.

He told them I told him that my son was dead, only he wasn't dead.

I recall the day my husband came home to find me flying up and down the kitchen. It was a pity. If he'd been out looking for the trailer he never woulda come across me. If it hadn't been raining. But in retrospect he delivered me up to Beirut, the greatest thing any fella did for me.

I can trace my first swing to official misbehavior in the days that followed Halim's issuing of the ‘you're a dirty old woman' words. I could huff and sigh oh sure I don't know what came over me, but I know exactly what came over me, the exhalation of mounting frustration at the peculiar carry on of the two males, who were plodding around the circumference of my
weekly life – and for that matter in both cases, with differing levels of enthusiasm, my aging cervix.

The thing people don't realize about patchwork women like me is how given to exasperation we are. On the surface, we fuss over the cleanliness of a work surface, or kitchen counter top, we notice the scum around the bath, we may, the most desperate amongst us, brasso the door handles each week, but do not for a millisecond misbelieve that as we are doing this undulating task we are not awash with rage and salty sentiment the likes of which would sting the eyes out of the most coarse rumped pig. So this week as I moved through my cleaning I, as usual, lifted the dustpan and brush, noticed the line of grime to the side of the range, wondered how the mounting empire of crumbs and hair and guck held a weekly, uninterrupted meeting between the grooves of Ireland's best cleaned floor lino, and as I tackled this minor point of kitchen cleaning philosophy I was lifted and found myself swung to the far end of my kitchen in a gondola like sweep that I could not explain it's deliverance, but deliver it did for my hands were banging the back of the broom on the light switch: it had actually flung me the length of the room. I was also smashing the knuckles on my hand. I put a stop to it, by flinging open the kitchen press and smacking off the hot water and heat. A freezing environment would do more for mental clarity. I threw the brush hard at the window, it cracked, it certainly cracked. I took off one of my socks, draped it on the door handle, took off the other of my socks placed it on the mat, removed my vest and underwear left them in the middle of the kitchen table. I went to bed, naked, except for my woollen skirt.

In bed, still naked, except for the skirt, now itching my thighs, I was forced to roll it up to become a thick, bulgy belt. In bed, I considered what had caused this tremendous swing. Was I angry? Indeed I was not. Was it the words dirty old woman had caused it? Indeed it was. In bed, I had the thrilling
feeling that I was now so old and beyond them, they'd never, none of them, no young buck like Halim, no old relic like my husband, neither catch me, nor understand me. In bed, I shouted aloud I am not a bit afraid of the lot
of ye.
In bed, I yelped to myself (like you'd yelp if you put your hand on something hot, you're so sure in that yelp, the bloody thing, that bloody thing I touched was hot!) I
wouldn't give
the rattle of the pan and brush to please any
of you.
May you all sink into
a pan
and get heated. Go on boil over.
Smear yourselves
all over my cooker! I'll never be caught! I was thrilled. It was a psychological hill and me so far ahead of the pack, the only small trouble was in this bed, at that itchy naked moment, I was headed for a ravine.

Clunk! I hit the tree. I considered the words. Dirty. Old. Woman.

Dirty. Gave little time nor trouble.

Old. Gave grave, wise, wondering, reduced, reducing, stumbling, up, and crinkling and neck and expectation. But all parts still working.

Woman. Gave pointless fact like saying a spanner is round have you noticed?

I had this chat with myself and the roof very loudly, megawatt volume, and it was ever such a comfort. Then the kitchen door handle turned, I increased the volume, you'll never catch me I screamed the way a child puts his legs out and flies on a bike down a hill, hands far from his brakes. That was me, screaming and reveling, thrilled, when in walked my husband. I heard him plod his way through the kitchen, without removing his boots.

—Take off your boots, I shouted. No fecking dirty shoes on my carpet!

He appeared at the end of my bed faster than I had calculated he might and I was only just at the word shoes when he interrupted. The divil he is with the interrupting.

—For the love of God woman what are ye at?

I began to exhale a long line of gurgling sounds at him, or so he said. I do not recall them. I could guarantee I was swearing at him. But no, doctor, he later said, not swearing she'd not swear, she is not the type like you know. When pressed he would not tell the doctor the precise words I used, saying only it would flush him red to do so.