by Jan Carson
‘Look,’ I say, interrupting my own apology, ‘I don’t know if I ever mentioned this before but I have a child, a daughter. I need my job back so I can make enough money to look after her properly. I’ve had a tough time for the last few months but I’m better now and I’m a perfectly good doctor. I’m more than capable of returning to work. So, can I have my job back?’
I’m shocked by the strength of my own voice. It’s like a series of perfectly placed punches. This is possibly the most forthright I’ve ever been. I’m not sure I can keep it up for more than a few minutes.
‘Well,’ replies Dr Bell, ‘technically your job’s not here any more, Dr Murray. We waited three months, and when you didn’t return any of our calls, we had to get someone else in. Susan – sorry, I mean Dr McAteer – is in your role now. I can’t just turf her out because you’ve decided you want to come back.’
‘I’ve not just decided I want to come back. I’ve been sick and now I’m better.’
‘That may be the case, son, but we couldn’t hold your job for ever. We have patients to consider.’
‘Isn’t there anything I could do? Locum work? Part-time? Anything at all?’
‘Well, Dr Murray, you’re a very lucky young man to have chosen today to call. Sarah – sorry, that’s Dr McKeown – is expecting again. She’s just about to go off on maternity leave and I’m literally sitting here at my desk, right now, filling in the paperwork to get someone in to cover her.’
‘I could do that.’
‘I know you could, Dr Murray, but I’d need some assurance that you’re not going to go AWOL again. I’ve every sympathy for you. My mum died last year and it knocked me for six, but you can’t just disappear every time something goes wrong.’
‘It won’t happen again,’ I say. ‘I haven’t got any more parents to lose.’
So, I find myself employed again. I stop eating yellow-label food immediately. I suspect it was giving me bowel problems. The fear of money is for the moment replaced by a larger fear of what should be done with Sophie. I can’t leave her alone but I can’t leave her with another person either. Any day now she will begin making structured noises. There is no way of explaining how dangerous this might be to a stranger. There is no way of making ‘Don’t listen to anything my daughter says. She’s genetically wired to try to kill people with her voice’ sound like something a nanny might believe.
I seriously contemplate the possibility of leaving Sophie by herself through the day: in a cupboard or locked room where she would be ‘safe’. I could come home at lunchtime to change and feed her. I could wire up some kind of long-distance baby monitor, maybe using mobile phones. I actually consider this as a workable solution. I try to convince myself that isolation might be good for the child, might even go some way to fixing her. I read articles on the internet about children locked in cupboards or raised by wolves. Without words, they speak later. Often they do not speak at all, or they invent their own language: a guttural sort of speaking that sounds a little like ancient Hebrew. Scholars think this may be the language of God, the way the world sounded before Babel. They are fascinated by the noises coming out of these locked-up children. They are quick to condemn people who shut their children into cupboards but, all the same, it’s easy to see they’re grateful that someone else has carried out such experiments for them.
I begin telling myself that I’m going to leave Sophie locked in the nursery while I’m at work. This will not be a problem while she’s still an infant. It is an acceptable practice in other developing countries. It might even be a kind of cure. I cannot bring myself to believe any of this. I can only picture the police breaking down my front door to find Sophie howling and soaked in her own piss or, worse still, suffocated. Eventually I admit that this will not work. I start again with a notebook, jotting down ideas and crossing them out with a biro. I think better in lists.
I must work to earn money.
Sophie cannot be left alone for her own safety.
Sophie cannot be left with other people for their safety.
I work this list backwards and forwards like an algebra equation, drink several glasses of whiskey and amend it slightly. Sophie cannot be left with anyone who will hear her. This is progress. I have options now. I could hire a nanny and insist she wears headphones. This would be hard to explain. I could swathe Sophie’s face and mouth in bandages, telling the nanny she has terrible infant eczema. This would not be practical for feeding. I could hire a nanny who cannot hear. I write this down a different way, just to be sure it still makes sense: hire a deaf nanny. This is what I decide to do. I’m a genius.
Of course, it isn’t easy finding a trained childcare professional who cannot hear anything. I must be subtle. People can be very suspicious when it comes to children and I don’t want Social Services involved. I think about ringing round a few agencies and asking if they have any deaf nannies on their books. This would require very little work on my part but I know the agency staff will ask why I’m specifically looking for someone who’s deaf and I’ll have no good answer for them. I will sound like some kind of deviant on the telephone. I need to find the perfect excuse. It’s a sort of puzzle. I have both the problem and the solution in my sights but no clear idea how to link the two.
I’m in Connswater Tesco, picking up some proper nappies, when the answer slaps me in the face. The woman in front of me at the till has a child balanced on her hip. He’s about two and struggling to open a banana. He holds it in front of his mother’s face and shakes it violently to attract her attention. She is preoccupied with carrier bags and money-off coupons. The child shakes the banana harder and, when his mother continues to ignore him, throws it on the floor and begins to howl. The woman stops fiddling with her purse. She turns to glare at the boy. I assume she will speak sharply to him or even give him a clip around the legs. But she doesn’t. Instead, she places the child in front of her feet, hunkers down and, with her raised hands, makes a series of tight little motions right under his nose. The child signs back – slips and pinches and neat fists, which clearly voice his frustration. It’s like they are dancing, but only using their hands. The boy is deaf. Perhaps his mother is deaf too.
I’m standing in the line at Connswater Tesco with a bumper pack of nappies and a frozen pizza tucked under my arm, watching these people, when I have my epiphany. I will tell the people at the agency that I need a deaf nanny because my child is hearing-impaired and she will need to learn how to sign. I am once again a genius. I run back down the alcohol aisle and lift a bottle of good Merlot. Tonight I’m celebrating.
Less than a week later I have found Christine through a childcare agency. Christine is from Newtownards and is more than happy to drive into the city every morning to mind Sophie in her own home. Christine is one hundred per cent deaf. I’ve checked. She was born this way and has been signing since she was a very small child. She is around twenty-five, though she dresses like a teenage girl in slogan T-shirts and denim-look leggings. She has honest brown eyes and a smile that is too large for her face. She holds Sophie in the crook of her arm, jiggling her hip gently to reassure the baby when she fusses. She looks natural doing this, as if she has been doing it for ever. I don’t look this natural with Sophie. I’ve watched myself holding her in the mirror and I look like I might drop her at any second. Watching Christine with my daughter makes me a little jealous, but also relieved.
In preparation for Christine’s first day I learn the sign for ‘welcome’ and also the sign for ‘thank you’. I figure ‘goodbye’ is probably just an ordinary wave. Aside from this, we will communicate with a notepad and pen. I leave instructions on the kitchen counter: sleep, feed and change schedules, emergency contacts and, at the bottom of the page, in bold, capital letters, the most important instruction of all: ‘DO NOT TAKE SOPHIE OUT OF THE HOUSE.’ I haven’t given Christine a reason for this. I’m paying her more money than the agency suggested. I hope this will mean she doesn’t ask questions. That’s how it works in gangster mo
vies. I’ve told the agency that my wife is dead. In childbirth, I explained, though as this sounds like something a Victorian would say I’ve added in an underlying heart condition to make the whole thing seem more believable.
‘I’m a widower,’ I’ve told them. I like the sound of this. ‘And I must go back to work to support my daughter. It’s important to me that she is well looked after, especially with her health problems.’ I feel the need to reiterate that Sophie is hearing-impaired. I’m constructing an alibi for us both. I want to tell the agency that they must warn Christine not to expect any romance to develop. This is not a movie. I won’t be looking for any comfort from the nanny, only professionalism. At the last minute I decide not to say anything about romance. It might sound creepy. I can’t afford to lose her.
On the first morning of my return to work I kiss Sophie goodbye. She is still sleeping and her hair is swirled to the side with pillow sweat. I leave fancy biscuits in the cupboard for Christine and remind her to text if she needs anything. (Ordinary phoning won’t work for us.) She smiles knowingly. I’m not her first anxious parent. At the front door we make the sign for goodbye. I get into my car and back it out of the drive, cruise through Orangefield and on to the Newtownards Road. At the traffic lights by the Holywood Arches, a carpet shop is still smouldering from the previous evening. There is a smell in the air like last night’s campfire doused with water. I pass five more Tall Fires before I arrive at the health centre. I hardly notice. My mind is miles away.
My regular parking spot has been allocated to Dr McAteer, so I leave the car in Dr McKeown’s old space. The lady receptionists raise their heads and smile at me as I pass through the waiting rooms. ‘Welcome back, Dr Murray,’ they call out. I’m pleased to see my name is still up on the patients’ information board, or perhaps it’s been re-added in anticipation of my return. I take a deep breath as I open the door to my old room. The smell hits me before I step inside: iodine, coffee, furniture polish and the barely masked stench of old piss. Nothing has changed, but my spider plant is on its last legs.
I think about Sophie sleeping at home. It’s only fifteen minutes since I saw her. This is already our longest separation and yet I’m quite calm, much calmer than I’d anticipated. A lady receptionist brings me coffee in my favourite Garfield mug. She’s made it exactly the way I like it and I haven’t even asked for coffee. Everything is going to be all right. I call Reception and tell them I’m ready for patients.
JULY
Sammy
You are your father’s son as I was my father’s son and he the same, most likely. Definitely his father before him, who came back from the war and beat a fella dead with bricks for talking shite about the Queen. You’ve seen him in photos at your nan’s. (He’s the one with the beard and the soldier get-up.)
In our family we all have the same face on us. Intimidating’s what they call it round here, which is a nice way of saying you wouldn’t want to meet any of us on a dark street. It’s not just me and your granda. Your uncles are cut from the same old sheet too: Matty’s inside and Jim is just this month out. The other two are only marking time. They cannot hold their anger still. They’re always looking to ruin something. Even your Aunty Kathleen has a mouth on her like hammers. She once broke a woman’s finger for taking the last trolley at Tesco. When she was a wee lassie she done boxing. That wasn’t normal for girls back then.
The rage runs through us all, as if we have two kinds of blood pumping side by side: red blood and blood that is much darker. All the way back it goes, to the first brute eejit who raised his hand in anger and hit. That was Cain, was it not? Did you do him in Sunday school with the other lads, Noah and Moses and your man with the stripy coat? I did. I could see where Cain was coming from, killing Abel. You have to put the competition in its place. A fella like Cain would do well in the East.
Course, you’re not just mine, are you? You’ve your mother’s blood in you as well. Her side are country folk, the sort of people who lift their dinner straight from the field and properly believe in church. They’re strong folk like us, but it’s a strength for lifting and carrying, not for beating down. You’ve your mother to thank for your good looks and the way your hair turns straw in the sun. You’re clean-whip smart. You didn’t get this from either of us. You come at everything sideways, son. It’s as if you’re standing on a stepladder looking down. This is not to say you’re better than me and it’s not to say you’re worse. You just have more options. You are sharp with your mind and sharp with your tongue. If you want to you can cut people. You do not need to use your fists.
When I was your age I had fists for every man who crossed me. This one was a Tout, the next a Taig, and the fella after, just your regular gobshite running his mouth off at the bar. I laid into every one the same. Up came the blood and the blood was a curled fist. You know it yourself, son: that kind of rage is a solid thing. You cannot swallow it or see your way through. I could never ease myself till there was blood on the floor or bones cracking, like split sticks. I had a sharp knife in one hand and a brick in the other. I liked to leave marks. I left marks all the way down the Castlereagh Road and up the Newtownards. You could see where I’d been. It felt as if I was leaking.
Later, the fists were not enough to keep me. I had guns. It was easy to find a gun in them days. Once you had one gun it attracted others. Your mother has probably told you about the guns and the way they left holes in us every time they went off. Your mother is a woman. Women do not understand guns. They do not like loudness of any kind. No doubt she’s claimed the guns were the death of us, the end of all our smiling days. Probably she cried while telling you this, held your hand in hers, and asked you never to touch a gun, even for picking off rabbits. It’s all true, son. Listen to your mother. Listen well. After the guns, we were not the same kind of together.
There’s two sides to it, though. Your mother won’t have told you that a gun is a kind of anchor, that it rests heavy in your hand. She’s never known the way your head will slow and clear, like a pint settling, every time you pull the trigger. How you will be God in this second and afterwards wish to claw the moment back. Fully God and fully man, they said in the Bible of Jesus. You can get the same head-melt from firing a shotgun. No crucifixion required. There’s nothing half as holy. Your mother doesn’t understand that this was never about the politics – the flags and freedom, God and country of it all. They were only words I stood behind. I did it again and again with fists, and guns, and sometimes bombs, for the pure blood rush of being alive. Believe me, son, you’ll always feel the bigger man when you’re standing over someone else.
You were the end to this. You came down like a solid wall. I would not have stopped for your mother, or my mother, or even the cause calling me into line. But the first time I held you in the crook of my arm there was a weight to you, a heaviness, I’d never felt in a gun. You scared me shitless, with your wee face, and your fingers hooking on to mine. I hadn’t been this feared in months. I hadn’t ever felt this loud. ‘This is it,’ said I to your mother. ‘I am fully God and fully man, right here on the living-room sofa’ (or words to that effect).
‘Away on with you, Sammy,’ said your mother back. She didn’t believe that everything could change so sharply, on a die. She was like a ship going in the one direction for so long it couldn’t turn without tipping.
Everything went forward from the moment of you. Job. House. Nice pullovers from Marks & Spencer’s. Proper holidays in the sun. I couldn’t leave the East completely but I moved us away from the river and over the ring road until we were so far east we were almost a different direction. I put you in a good school. Gave you a brother and sister to ground you. Forced a violin into your hands, and when it didn’t take, I tried the trumpet. An instrument of some sort was essential, and a university degree. It would stand with you when folks asked where it was you’d grown up. I wanted you to take root here, to be a different breed of man.
I’m a different man, these days. It’s bee
n twenty years since I last raised my fists and hit. I do not feel like a different man. I feel like I’m a stranger. I’m carrying my own self around inside me, like a pregnant woman or one of them Russian dolls. When I look back I can still see where I’ve come from. I could close my eyes and drive them streets in my sleep, all those cars and little houses eyeing me from either side of the road. I could find the marks I’ve left there, in the street and on the people. They’ll remember me, even now. You never forget that kind of rage. But I don’t go there any more. I don’t take you or your brother or sister. I don’t even tell you about it.
I want everything to be golden for you, son. I want everything to move forwards.
But here we are with these Tall Fires and all the broken mess of you. The whole city’s burning and you are at the centre of it, talking the bloody talk of my younger days. Flags and bonfires. Civil liberties and free speech. No point denying your involvement. Do you think a father can’t tell his own son’s hand raised in anger? Do you think your hand is redder than mine? I doubt it, son. Do you not know where your darkness comes from?
I would like to say I’m proud of you. I was almost proud of you once when you carried yourself like an ordinary boy, when you kicked footballs and rode bikes, thieved my drink when I wasn’t looking. I’m not proud of you now. There is no sense in this thing you’re doing. It’s only moving backwards.
I would like to say I love you. Wanting to love someone is not the same as truly loving them, though sometimes it’s a good start. Ask your mother about this. Say you’re asking for a friend.
