Snowflake

by Louise Nealon

  * * *

  The door of the caravan is open. We rush inside and Mam is helping Billy into his armchair.

  “Jesus and Mary and Joseph. What are ye doing here?” he croaks.

  “You’re OK!” I go to hug him, but he swats me away.

  “Sure why wouldn’t I be?” he says, looking past me to Mark and Shirley. “Lads, you’re looking well.”

  Shirley is in her nightie and Mark has a pair of boxers and a coat on. They both look at the broken glass on the ground, the rope on the floor, and the welts around Billy’s neck. He pulls his jacket collar up to cover the marks.

  Mam mumbles, “I’ll leave ye to it,” and edges her way past Shirley out the door.

  “Are you all right, Billy?” Shirley ventures.

  “I’m grand, sure I was only pulling her leg and she goes wakening the whole parish.” Billy’s voice is shaking. His face is purple and he can’t stop coughing.

  There’s an awkward silence. Mark and Shirley look at their feet.

  Billy claps his hands together. “Sure now that we’re all here we may as well have a party.”

  “Billy, we should probably call an ambulance to make sure you haven’t done yourself any harm,” Shirley says, taking out her phone.

  “There’s a bottle of whiskey in the press there and some mugs up top.” Billy nods to Mark, who proceeds to get the whiskey out.

  Shirley turns to me. “Are you OK, hun?”

  “I’m fine.” I put my hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Billy, for God’s sake, let us help you.”

  Billy looks at my hand on his shoulder and starts to laugh. “You know what? I don’t even know how we’re related. You’re some drama queen.”

  Shirley puts her arm around my shoulders. “Come on, pet, let’s get you inside.”

  “She must have had a bad dream,” Billy says.

  I scramble out of Shirley’s grasp and box him in the face. It’s a satisfying punch. I see a flash of truth in his eyes. “How fucking dare you,” I say, and turn to Shirley. “I’ll make my own way inside.”

  Nelly

  I knock on the Tabernacle door. Mam flings it open and hugs me.

  “I’m sorry that you had to see that,” she whispers, rocking me in her arms.

  “How did you know?” I ask. “How did you know he would do that?”

  She frowns. “Will you do me a favor? Will you wait until after I finish writing and then I’ll explain?”

  “Ah Mam—”

  “Please? It’s important.”

  “OK.”

  She sits cross-legged on her chair and scribbles away in her Aisling copybook.

  My head is beginning to pound. The sound of her scribbling soothes me. I lie on the bed and stare at her wall of words.

  Mam used to tell me that the reason she kept sticking pages to the walls was to make them thicker to hide her secrets from Nelly who lived behind the wallpaper. Nelly was my grandmother’s invention. She claimed that Nelly stuck her nose out of the wallpaper at night and crawled into our thoughts while we slept.

  There’s a new poem on a piece of newspaper that Mam has smoothed onto the wall. It’s called “Raglan Lane.” It’s a Brendan Kennelly poem, written in response to Patrick Kavanagh’s “Raglan Road.”

  “I saw Brendan Kennelly on a bench in Trinity once,” I whisper to Nelly.

  Mam sits on the end of the bed and begins to rub my feet. Her hands feel like fire. “Did you say hello to him?” she asks.

  “No. He had dandruff on the shoulders of his jacket—lots of it. It looked like his head was creating its own climate—making it snow in September.”

  Mam wriggles her fingers in between my toes and rubs the spaces in between.

  “Mam, tell me what’s going on.”

  She’s pulling my toes out one at a time, turning them slightly and waiting for them to crack before moving on. My little toe snaps like a broken wishbone.

  “How did you know to check on him?”

  “Why do you think I sleep so much? Billy says that he doesn’t dream. That’s not true. His dreams come to me. I keep an eye on them. When I woke up from this one, I just had a feeling. I knew what was happening.”

  “You saved his life, Mam.”

  She shakes her head and hands me her Aisling copy. “I wrote it down. The dream. What I could remember of it. It’s contaminated now that I’ve tried to pin it down with words, but it’s the best I can do. Read it. It reads like a child’s memory. When Billy dreams about his mammy, he goes back to being a little boy.”

  I open up the copybook and read the last entry:

  Sandman

  The baby on the label of the gripe water bottle looks like an old man. When I take the bottle out from its hiding place underneath the sink, Mammy sings the tagline, “Granny told Mother and Mother told me.”

  Gripe water is meant for babies but his mammy says we’re all big babies—even mammies. I am only allowed a thimble but Mammy is allowed to drink a whole glass because she is bigger than me.

  It’s my job to make Mammy’s nightcap in the kitchen when Daddy goes to sleep. I only got the job because I caught her drinking in the kitchen and she didn’t want me to tell anybody. Mammy explained that she’s not able to fall asleep the way Daddy does. She needs her Sandman. The Sandman is me.

  The sand comes in green capsules that Mammy gets from Keane’s pharmacy. They’re sent from the moon. There’s a factory there where the tiny moon people blow moon dust into time capsules to send to Mammy to help her sleep. I tasted the moon dust once and it tasted disgusting. When we come back from the pharmacy, Mammy cracks open the capsules from their foil and tips the moon dust into the fancy sugar bowl we’re supposed to leave empty for Christmas. She does it quickly. Her hands are shaking. She slits the foil with her fingernail, opens the capsules, and tips the sand into the bowl.

  Every night, I make my special recipe. I pour a wine glass of gripe water and add two bottle-caps of vodka. I stir a spoonful of sand in and watch it disappear like sugar in tea.

  Mammy isn’t sleeping much these days. And when she does, she says that she has bad dreams. So every night, I add an extra spoon of sand into her drink. Every night, I add one more, just for luck. I stir it in quickly. I don’t want to get in trouble like the time I opened up all the doors of the advent calendar and let Jesus out too early.

  There is so much sand in the glass that it has stopped disappearing. I swirl the glass around again but the sand sits at the bottom of the glass like fallen snow. Mammy sits down beside me. We cheers—clink thimble against wine glass—and she drinks it—all of it—in one go.

  Reason

  I go out to the caravan to check on Billy. He is sweeping up the broken window with a dustpan and brush. The shards of glass seem like ice that has broken through the window and Billy looks like winter’s janitor tidying up.

  “Mind your feet,” he says.

  “It’s OK, I’m wearing shoes.”

  “Show’s over. My audience has left,” Billy says. “Thanks for bringing them around.”

  “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Well, now we know not to trust you in a real emergency.”

  “Billy.”

  He stops sweeping and looks up at me. “Yes?”

  “Are we going to talk about this properly?”

  He gestures for me to take a seat. “Be my guest.”

  I sit down and look around at the stacks of old newspapers, his unmade bed, and dingy kitchenette. Billy has changed his clothes. A crumb of glass is on the arm of the chair. I pick it up and roll it up and down the length of my thumb with the tip of my index finger.

  “What is it you want to talk about?” Billy asks, emptying the shower of broken glass into a bin bag.

  “It wasn’t a joke.”

  “What wasn’t?”

  “The reason you’re wearing that polo neck.”

  “These are my normal clothes.”

  “You can pretend all you like, but I know what I saw.” />
  “Do you now.”

  “Yes.”

  “So tell me then. Tell me what you know.”

  I go to the press underneath his sink and rummage around until I find it, hidden at the back. I hold up the empty bottle of gripe water.

  Billy laughs. “So this is the shite that your mother has been filling you with?”

  “She wrote it down.”

  “Oh you’re helping her to interpret the dreams now is it? You’re going to spend your whole life bearing witness to these dreams? You’ve finally fallen for her bullshit.”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense when I say it out loud. I hardly believe myself but—”

  “But Maeve has been filling your head with shite. I’m telling you, Debbie, once you start listening to her, it’s game over.”

  “Mam just saved your life. She is the only reason you’re alive. And this is how you repay her.”

  “Repay her? What’s this? I don’t do enough for Maeve, is that it?”

  “I don’t mean it like that.”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to do more for your mother than I already am?”

  “Well she knows—”

  “What does she know? Tell me what she knows?”

  “She knows why you tried to kill yourself. She knows the reason why.”

  “The reason?”

  “Yes, the reason, Billy.”

  “You want a reason? You want to know? This has got nothing to do with my childhood or my mother or my fucking dreams. You are the reason. You. Once upon a time, you were the only thing keeping me going. And I tried my best with you, I really did, but you’re your mother’s daughter now. I’ve washed my hands of you. Now get the fuck out.”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone.”

  “Get out or I’ll throw you out.”

  * * *

  Mam finds me sitting outside the caravan. My teeth are chattering but I can’t feel the cold. I can’t feel anything.

  She crouches down beside me. “You’ve a session with Audrey to go to.”

  “I can’t go.”

  “I think it would be a good idea.”

  “Why is everyone pretending that everything is OK?”

  “It’s not OK. That’s why I think you should go. You’re an hour late but I rang her to apologize. I told her you’re on the way over.”

  Ophelia

  Audrey hands me a basin filled with cleaning supplies. Yellow rubber gloves, Windolene, kitchen roll, a green scouring pad, a blue J-cloth, a bottle of Cif, and a bottle of Toilet Duck are arranged like gifts in a hamper.

  She holds up a toothbrush. “This is for the tricky corners you can’t get at with the cloth.”

  I nod.

  “Take as long as you need. I have the highest of standards.”

  “I understand.”

  * * *

  I expected Audrey to know. I expected Mam to have told her. I expected her to open the door and I’d fall into her arms and she’d hold me and I didn’t think past that because I was so sure it would happen.

  * * *

  I survey her perfectly clean bathroom and feel like I’m going to explode. Maybe I could smash the mirror. See if I could stand up in the toilet, balance on one foot, and try to flush myself down. I want her to come back in and see me lying in a bath of blood after cutting myself open—a display gruesome enough to shock Ophelia.

  Instead, I decide to play the martyr. I do the most radical, unnatural thing I can think of and clean every inch of Audrey’s bathroom.

  * * *

  The tiles in the shower keep threatening to fall apart on me. As I scrub the spaces in between the brown, hexagonal tiles, flecks of white break off in pieces like flecks of shell that I crunch into white sand.

  * * *

  I’m still scrubbing the sand from the tiles when Audrey knocks on the door.

  “Debbie?”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “It’s just,” she peeks in. “It’s getting late.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right. Do you want to come into the front room? I’ll stick on the kettle.”

  * * *

  “Last night, Billy tried to kill himself.”

  I say it when she’s handing me my cup of tea.

  Audrey’s hand freezes and the tea wobbles. “Is he OK?”

  “Yeah,” I say, taking the cup from her. “Everyone is pretending it didn’t happen.”

  Audrey is standing in front of the fire, holding on to the mantelpiece.

  “I thought Mam would have told you,” I say.

  “She didn’t. Billy?”

  I nod.

  “That’s . . . well, I can’t begin to imagine how you feel.”

  “He said it was a joke—a practical joke. Which is clearly bullshit. He’s not talking to me.” I’m crying now. “He’s being really mean.”

  “Oh Debbie.”

  The tears come harder and louder as I feel her arms around me. I cling to her to make sure she’s real, afraid that if I let go she’ll disappear.

  Lady Bracknell

  I wake from a dreamless sleep. I’m not at home. I’m lying on a couch. I think my arm is dead because I can see it in front of me but I can’t feel it. The hand moves.

  “Ah!”

  “It’s all right,” Audrey murmurs.

  “I’m so sorry!” I spring out of the couch. It feels even weirder standing over her.

  “It’s all right,” she says, sitting up and opening and closing her fist. “I tried to move you to a bed, but you wouldn’t go. And well, you wouldn’t let go of my hand so this was the best I could do. You have an impressively strong grip, even in your sleep.”

  “I am mortified.”

  “You’re grand.” She claps her hands together. “Now, breakfast.”

  “Oh no—”

  “Don’t argue with me. You’re not leaving here without something to eat.”

  She skips out of the room and I wonder if I should follow her or stay. My clothes stink, my hands are chapped, and I smell like cleaning detergent. It feels like I’m after sleeping with my old piano teacher.

  * * *

  I creep into the kitchen. It’s small but homely and smells like baking. Audrey slaps rashers onto tinfoil and sticks them under the grill. There is a collage of memorial cards on the side of her fridge. The more I look at their serene faces, the less morbid they seem.

  “I hope you eat meat,” Audrey says, tossing sausages into the frying pan.

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Can I help at all?”

  “Actually, if you don’t mind, you can feed the hens for me.”

  “Of course.” I’m relieved that I don’t have to stand in awkward silence. “They are doing well to survive the winter.”

  “Oh, they are a hardy bunch. The bag of feed is just outside the door. Fill up their bowl—you’ll see it when you’re out there.” She takes a jacket off the crook and hands it to me. “If you wear this and put up the hood they’ll think it’s me. That way they won’t make strange with you.”

  A fresh layer of snow has fallen last night, but there is only a light dusting on the path that has been cleared from the back door to the coop. The bag of feed is heavier than I thought. I end up dragging it behind me. I can see a matronly hen outside the coop standing on one leg and holding the other up in disgust, like an old woman who just stepped in a puddle.

  I’m remembering the game we used to play in primary school. There was a gap in the fence that separated Audrey Keane’s garden from the school playground. We used to sneak in to play a game called Catch the Chicken at break-time. If you were lucky enough to catch one you threw it up in the air and it went berserk. We felt it in our guts that the game was cruel, but it was so much fun. The hens would tremble if we even looked at them. And they looked so funny trying to run away, squawking for help.

  I pour the feed into the bowl. One by one, the other hens pop their heads out of their boxes. A brown one comes running over neck first, flut
tering her feathers.

  “There you go.” I try to pet it, but it jerks away.

  * * *

  The table is set with Delft cups and saucers. Billy has the same set of Delft gathering dust in the caravan. I remember I used to trace the blue willow pattern while he told me the legend of the two doves. The morning sun glints off the silver cutlery. There is a plate of rashers, sausages, and grilled tomatoes and a basket of fresh scones, with pots of jam and cream. I smile at the side plate of white bread soldiers for dipping into our soft-boiled eggs. Audrey makes a pot of coffee and pours us each a wine glass of orange juice. I feel fancy holding it in my hand. I have the urge to hold my pinky finger up while I take a sip.

  “How are the hens?” she asks.

  “Grand. There’s one out there that is disgusted by the snow. She seems really posh. She turned down her beak at the feed like she was disappointed it wasn’t caviar.”

  “That would be Lady Bracknell,” Audrey says.

  “Do they all have names?”

  “They do. There is Lady Bracknell, Lord Goring, the Duchess of Berwick, Algernon, Gwendolyn, and Bunbury. I used to have more but the fox got them.”

  “‘Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken,’” I quote.

  “Yes. It turns out hens and Oscar Wilde characters have a lot in common. They are a bunch of neurotic lunatics.”

  “At least they’re original. It’s hard to be original these days.” I immediately regret saying something so clichéd.

  “I think people can be original, they just don’t always have the courage to be who they really are. It’s courage we need. Courage is as rare as hen’s teeth.”

  “How many teeth do hens have?” I ask.

  “Hens don’t have teeth.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hence the saying.”

  “Yeah, I get it now.” I laugh half-heartedly.

  “Tough crowd,” she says.

  “I remember your hens from school,” I say, tapping the top of my boiled egg with the back of my spoon.

  “And I’m sure they remember you. You were one of the ones who used to chase them.”