Our Lady of Everything

by Susan Finlay

  Stan sighed again, but this time with relief. He went over to the fridge and took out a beer. As he uncapped the bottle he thought of his daughter, whom he loved, and Eoin O’Shea, whom he did not, and he felt the pain from last week returning. Then he put down the bottle, went back over to the laptop and typed ‘www.google.com’ into the navigation bar, and then ‘Eoin O’Shea’ into the box beneath it, and line after line of video links appeared. He clicked on the first strip of characters and a succession of pop-up windows for online gambling, pornography and such like began to open out across the screen.

  Stan clicked ‘close’ on the first of the pop-up windows, but almost immediately a dozen others sprang up in its place. He kept on clicking and clicking but the Internet was too fast for him. Not knowing what else to do, he held his fat, pink finger on the power button until the machine shut down. Then, at the exact moment that the screen went black, Iwona entered the kitchen.

  ‘You’re looking very shifty,’ she said, in Polish.

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Yes.’ She put down the carrier bags she was carrying and moved closer to the table. ‘What have you have been up to?’

  ‘Oh nothing really, but I think that I accidently downloaded some sort of virus—’

  ‘A virus? What on earth were you looking at?’

  ‘Just the Self Assessment website, and then, well, I guess that I sort of googled Eoin—’

  ‘Oh for goodness sake Stańko! First you decide to spy on Kasia and then while you’re doing it you break her things.’

  Iwona turned away from him and back towards the carrier bags. Her shoulders were raised in such a way that, even though it made only a very slight, almost imperceptible difference to her posture, Stan could tell she was annoyed. He watched as she firmly and precisely placed each item down upon the worktop, and opened a box of eggs, wriggling each one of them around inside the cardboard cups to check that they hadn’t broken. He waited until she had finished and then, in what he hoped was a conciliatory voice, said, ‘Look, next time I see Kasia I’ll explain—’

  ‘Well then you can explain tomorrow. She’s coming here for her tea – although I won’t be cooking anything fancy.’

  ‘Right, well I’ll . . . ’

  But instead of finishing his sentence he drained the rest of his beer, and then opened the fridge and got another, while doing his best to ignore the tone of Iwona’s shoulders. Again he waited, this time while she filled the kettle, found a teabag and sliced a lemon; and then he continued to wait until she had sat down beside him, mug in hand. Then he tried again: ‘I was concerned, that’s all. You must have seen the papers.’

  ‘And since when have you believed the papers?’ said Iwona, in a voice that had most definitely seen the papers, and yet refused to see what was in them.

  ‘But that’s exactly why I looked.’ He took another sip of beer and said, ‘She’s my daughter—’

  ‘Our daughter.’

  ‘Our daughter and . . . ’

  And then, without any warning, the pain was back, only this time it came with memories attached to it. The ones where he’d learned that his brother and then his father had died, for instance. Or the ones where he’d seen his father and then just his mother crying for them. Or the ones where Iwona had first come to England, and there had then been that terrible, indefinite period of uncertainty, where he’d woken up each morning thinking that he had lost her . . . On and on the memories kept on coming, until, having no other way of saying anything that should be said, he banged his fist upon the table.

  ‘But what if it is true Iwona?’ He finally spluttered as the grief moved downwards, and a new feeling, this time of nausea, welled up inside his stomach. ‘What if it is and she marries him? What sort of life is that? For us? For them? For anybody? Tell me – what sort of life is that?’

  Paddy

  PADDY WAITED, NOT ONLY UNTIL the bus had pulled into the bus station and the driver had turned the engine off, but also until all of the other passengers had collected their belongings. He continued to wait as, one by one, they filed past him, stumbled down the stairs, and retrieved their larger luggage from the hold; as they all said ‘thank you driver’ to the driver, and the driver said ‘cheers duck’ back, and then went round with a carrier bag picking up their empty sandwich wrappers; and only then, when the bus was completely empty of excuses, did he begin, very slowly, to make his way along the aisle.

  Paddy could see, through the gaps in the concrete pillars, that the sky outside was a washed-out English grey. There were a few girls with pushchairs in front of the poundshop, and an older lady pushing a tartan trolley. Although he knew that his Nana would probably have a new calendar by now, it occurred to him that it might still be a good idea to go and look for a present. He had missed Christmas after all, and didn’t want to just turn up empty-handed . . .

  Paddy slung his kitbag over his shoulder with what would have been determination, had determination not long since been replaced by continuing to function, just, and set off towards the city centre. Out of habit he walked with brisk, even steps. But inside his heart was racing, stopping and starting like machine-gun fire ...

  Paddy carried on walking until he reached the Body Shop. The window was filled with cardboard boxes, each of which contained a variety of creams on beds of shredded tissue. ‘Smellies’ – that’s what women called them, a word that seemed as strange and alien as women themselves now did. ‘Snakes with tits’ – that’s what one of his old army buddies had called women, after his wife had informed him, via text message, that she was leaving him for someone else . . .

  ‘After anything in particular?’

  Paddy looked through the shopgirl, and picked out one of the bottles on the shelf behind her. He held it up to his nose, and inhaled the scent of a sick peach. Then he turned it round so that he could see the label, which said ‘Dewberry’. Despite the fact that, in recent months, he’d learnt numerous picturesque names for plants, on account of having seen numerous picturesque plants and, having little else to offer his fellow soldiers by way of conversation, had then always enquired as to the names of them, he couldn’t help wondering if the dewberry, much like the clustered bellflower or blooming nightshade of Northern Iraq, might also be an hallucination, or some other type of thing that he’d unwittingly invented.

  ‘Is it real?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said the shopgirl.

  ‘Is it real? The dewberry?’

  She looked confused, and then, as if suddenly deciding to take it as a joke, she laughed. Paddy was still wearing his army boots, but with jeans, and a well-ironed shirt tucked into them, and he knew that the figure he cut was a crisp and good-looking one, just as he knew too that this was the reason she had opted to turn her bewilderment into amusement, and not contempt . . .

  ‘I think it must be,’ said the shopgirl, ‘or they wouldn’t be able to make it into a body spray, would they?’ She started to toss her hair, but then stopped, so that it fell into her face and not across her shoulders, ‘Unless it’s not a dewberry, but dew from a berry. I mean, in that case it could be any berry couldn’t it? It could be a—’

  ‘Gooseberry?’

  She laughed again, resumed tossing her hair and said, ‘Like it?’

  ‘Err, it’s okay.’

  ‘For your girlfriend . . . ?’

  ‘No. My Nana.’

  The shopgirl’s face brightened. She led Paddy to a table covered in pink soap, and matching bath salts. This time they smelled of rose-scented drawer liners, which was apt, considering that it was the sort of thing his Nana would have immediately put in a drawer under the category ‘for best’. Only the best is always yet to come, thought Paddy, with no emotion whatsoever, the best never comes and all that’s been saved up for it festers . . . He poked one of the soaps and said, ‘I’ll have a think about it.’

  ‘Oh.’ The shopgirl’s face fell, and she quickly tried to pretend it hadn’t. ‘Well I’m always here if you need any advice, or . .
. ?’

  ‘I’ll remember that, thanks.’

  Paddy left the Body Shop and walked on, back around, and then down towards the Broadmarsh Shopping Centre, except that this time he took a different route that went past Marks & Spencer. Through the window he could see several middle-aged women loitering by the cardigans. Beside them was a stack of decorative tins containing biscuits. He knew this was one of the few gifts that Margaret would allow herself to enjoy, as the tin could be saved and then used to disguise a less expensive brand, meaning that the contents could be devoured guilt-free. Accordingly he entered, picked up the largest one that he could find, and turned towards the checkout – yet something held him back.

  Without any warning, the something, which was almost a tear, but was actually an involuntary reflex action, began to form in the corner of Paddy’s eye. He knew that his reluctance to make the purchase was odd, especially since, once he had done so he would be able to go home, and indeed, could be home, in under half an hour. He was tired, and if he went home he could sleep. He could go into what was still his bedroom, and draw the curtains that were still his curtains, and pull the duvet right up over his head, and stay there. Alone. In the dark . . . But instead he put down the tin, picked up his kitbag, and carried on walking.

  Fame and Glory

  STAN SAT AT THE KITCHEN table and watched as his wife prepared their evening meal. True to her word, which in this particular case was indistinguishable from her irritation, Iwona had refused to cook ‘anything fancy’, which also meant anything Polish, which also meant anything heavy and fatty and filling, which was exactly the type of food he liked best. He watched as she rinsed and then sliced the tomatoes for their salad, and then stopped abruptly, with the knife raised in her hand.

  ‘Kasia?’ she said, in Polish and English, and then listened to the dull click and twist of their own front door. ‘Kasia is that you?’ And then, as soon as Katarzyna appeared, she let her arm drop back down against her side. ‘You look different. I can’t quite put my finger on it but . . . ’

  Katarzyna smiled, opened the cutlery drawer and took out what they needed. She laid the table, and then as soon as she had finished she began to pick out the pieces of tomato from the salad, only stopping when Iwona slapped her wrist. His wife was right, Stan thought fondly, his daughter did look different, and not only that, she looked beautiful.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he said.

  Katarzyna laughed and reached for another piece of tomato, only this time Iwona moved what was left of the salad out of her way before she had chance to take it. She pointed at the cardboard box beside her and said, ‘If you actually want to help me, then you could whisk those eggs together.’

  Katarzyna nodded, removed a large glass bowl from one of the cupboards, opened up the cardboard box and took out an egg. She broke it onto the side of the bowl, and a pool of blood and slime immediately glopped out onto the bottom.

  ‘Eww! Yuck! Gross!’ she said, prodding at something that resembled a piece of gristle. ‘What the fuck is that?!’

  ‘Kasia! There is no need to swear,’ said Iwona, and then, examining the bowl she added, ‘It’s the beginnings of a chick that’s all. We must have got a fertilised one by mistake.’

  Iwona scooped out what could have been the chicken or the egg and washed it down the sink. She cracked the remaining eggs into the bowl and whisked them all, very briskly together, and then poured the mixture into the frying pan, which was already warming on the stove.

  ‘There, that’s better. And now your father has something to tell you,’ she said, her shoulders rising as she twisted the pan. ‘Don’t you Stańko?’

  ‘Oh, oh yes,’ Stan began, a little hesitantly. ‘Well, yesterday I started doing my tax return – you’re right it’s much easier online – and then I was, you know, having a look on the Internet, and I think that at some point I may have downloaded a virus—’

  ‘A virus? But what were you looking at?’

  ‘Yes exactly,’ said Iwona, and once more the lightning flashed across her shoulder blades. ‘Please enlighten us.’

  Stan paused, and as he did so he thought about how, even though after twenty-five years of marriage, he could sense his wife’s irritation within a mere fraction of a second, it still took him many hours, or even days, to figure out the cause. Iwona, he now realised, was not insisting that he reveal his suspicions because she wanted to expose him, but because she too wanted to know whether or not his suspicions had any basis in reality . . .

  ‘Just the Self Assessment website,’ he continued, but a little more confidently than before, ‘and then I mean, I guess that I sort of googled Eoin—’

  ‘But why were you googling Eoin?’ said Katarzyna.

  ‘Go on,’ said Iwona, bending over the pan. ‘Why were you?’

  ‘Because . . . ’ And Stan turned from his wife’s frightened shoulders to his daughter’s frightened face, and braced himself because this was what it took, he felt, to be a husband, a father and some sort of decent man. ‘Because of what I read in the papers. I wanted to know if-if . . . if it was true.’

  There was silence, for he couldn’t be sure how long and then: ‘You don’t have to worry. We broke up,’ said Katarzyna.

  ‘You broke up?’ said Stan, unsure whether this was the truth or simply a ruse to get him and Iwona off her back.

  ‘For good?’ said Iwona, who must have also been wondering if and when Katarzyna and Eoin had actually spoken.

  ‘Yes, for good,’ said his beautiful daughter, before getting up and leaving the room.

  Stan breathed out, and then opened the fridge and took out a bottle, which he placed against the table’s edge. He hit the top of it, squarely, with his fist so that the cap popped off and a little beer spurted out onto the floor. He sighed again, with relief more than pleasure, and then he took a swig, and then another, and then another until the bottle was empty. Finally, Iwona moved away from the stove and sat down beside him, and then, very gently, he placed his arm around her shoulders.

  Cloud

  MEG CONTINUED TO REMOVE PIECES of her clothing, one by one, from the overstuffed rail. Occasionally she would take whatever she had just selected over to the mirror, and hold it up in front of her, turning this way and that, before then either returning it to its original place or, more often than not, throwing it, along with all of the others onto the pile beside the bed.

  ‘But are you sure you want to get rid of quite so much?’ said Kathy, picking up a pair of trousers.

  ‘I can’t take everything with me.’

  ‘Couldn’t you leave some things here? What about Dave? Or your parents?’

  What about Dave, thought Meg, or my parents – neither of whom wanted her to go to India but all of whom wanted her to be an Indian in a million other ways – and then last but not least what about me? Me – who is religious and spiritual, but not religious and cultural. Nor spiritual and cultural. Nor anything else. Me – who has nonetheless found the courage to do something more daring and poetic and romantic than she ever thought possible? Me – thought Meg, again and again, throwing pieces of her clothing onto the floor. What about me and what I want, to be, or to become, right in this moment, now?

  ‘And what about your viva?’ said Kathy, picking up a dress and wriggling into it. ‘You can’t go away before that, surely?’

  Meg paused and looked up, not at the rail, but at the books filled with case studies, and the files filled with photocopies of them, all of which were still arranged, alphabetically, across the walls, and wished that she could throw them on the pile as well; and then set fire to it, in a religiously and spiritually, but not culturally, Indian way until the present was gone, and she had no alternative but the future . . . But instead she said, ‘But I can Skype. And I’ve already saved enough to buy my ticket.’

  ‘But why go now?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to wait for then.’

  Meg made her way over to the mirror and held a blouse in front of her
chest. Next to her own reflection she could also see Kathy’s. Her mother, in one of her more pious and senior moments, had told her that the hair you were born with was the hair from your past life, and that this was the reason that Hindu (or, in her case, Lingayat) babies were shaved; and the thought that her own lost locks might be framed in this way, not as a source of regret, but as a symbol of rebirth, was one she found pleasing. She removed the blouse from the hanger, threw it onto the pile and said, ‘That dress looks better on you, you should keep it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Kathy, who blushed and added, ‘but how long will you be gone for?’

  ‘I don’t know. Definitely six months. Indefinitely? Who knows.’

  ‘But won’t Dave miss you?’

  ‘He has a blog now.’

  ‘But do you think that’s enough?’

  But do I think that’s enough? thought Meg, as Kathy replaced her in front of the mirror, turning this way and that so that the dress fluttered out around her thighs. Yes, unfortunately, I do. She looked at Kathy’s body, which said sex, whereas everything about her own body said denial; and yet at the same time it now seemed as though it was her body and her style that Kathy wanted . . .

  ‘You know you really should try wearing your hair up,’ said Meg, examining Kathy’s reflection through her own.

  ‘Like this?’ And Kathy piled her hair, loosely on top of her head.

  ‘No, this.’

  Meg stepped forward and scraped back all the strands in the same way that she used to scrape back hers every time she was annoyed and wanted, temporarily, to be sexless, and Kathy’s eyes and cheeks became a series of stark flat stripes. It made her look older but also more elegant, and again more like Meg, or what Meg used to be, before she had moved, religiously and spiritually, beyond it.