Dave laughed too, but he was still frowning, his fingers starting to work the sugar-spattered surface of our kitchen table. His fingers, stained with nicotine near the tips, pushing at the grains. Little spirals, endless zeros. Christ, I thought, I could sit here for ever.
Warm sweat. Under it, a perfume; clean and new, like spring.
Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak.
Her knife lands.
The tram bells trill. A voice tells me to get off.
This is what I want.
I enter the room.
Kaa’s hungry eyes register. His body coils, his head lifts.
I don’t see him, his opened cage.
I reach for the heater, feel down its back, unclick its door.
A rustle. I turn. Too late.
He flings forward, all open.
i am
I am in him, and he is around her, pushing his musculature into her strong-soft flesh, and they are one, and she is playing Nights in White Satin and I hear it through her skin, and his and my own, as it dissolves, and upstairs they’re laughing with their girlfriends, Matt and Dave, doing Steo as best as they can without me and wondering where I’ve got to, the fat boy, wondering where I’ve gone.
The Lady, Vanishing
At dawn Tommy does it. The cows are lowing. Larksong in his ears. No bells chiming yet for the Easter Sunday Mass.
He gets her ready. He could leave her sleeping, curled up in her bed, but that wouldn’t feel right, not for his princess of eastern promise.
Black shoes first. Shiny. Then the knickers, their favourite ones, the whitewhitewithblacklace. She’s awake now. She watches; silent, eyes wide, as he pulls the flimsies up, lets the elastic snap around her waist. He’s out of breath. Had to do everything himself. As usual. Because – god forgive him – she’s so bloody helpless.
A sound. A sigh? Her mouth is open. Where are we—?
Surprise, Honey.
She’s always loved it when he calls her that. Oh, Honey, oh, Honey, my Honey, oh.
He takes the red truck. The new woman in town likes that truck. Real cute, Tommy! You got some vision. Any room for a passenger there? She’s from Chicago, the other end of the planet from Honey. She’s not too old; she has money. And dark wild hair and a crackling laugh that runs down Tommy’s spine, lifts his balls and squeezes, real slow.
They’re at the ugly end of the harbour. Honey stares out. The slate cliffs cut brutal into the cobalt sky. A huddle of giant bins, filled with shattered glass, stinking sugar-crusted plastic, soggy paper.
He opens the door.
She looks surprised. What are you—?
Sshh, Honey.
A flicker. The breeze, catching her hair. He expects another question but she says nothing, just lets him lift her – so bloody helpless – out.
Gulls scream, wheel, lift on the wind.
Look!
He points west. At the ocean, cool blue in the dawn. At America beyond it and, in its heart, Chicago, invisible, where all his hopes lie.
Honey – look!
He forces her head around to the ocean. Makes her see. This is why.
What do they say in the agony columns? It’s not you, it’s me.
She’s weightless in his arms. Cool. He touches her mouth, her shallow forehead, her staring eyes. She trembles. Her hands are warming up under his fingers. He traces the numb elegant length of her right leg from black patent toe to lonely-filling hole.
There’s something wet in her eyes.
You got some vision, Tommy.
He could smash her first, break her, flatten her to an inch of his life, but that, he feels, would be cheating. So as he pushes her through the narrow mouth of the bin, she’s still herself enough to resist, scraping at him with her hard fingertips. He’s glad of that, in a way. She screeches when the rusted rim rips at her face. Hisses as it carves a pink gash down her cheek. There’s blood on her nose. His? He recoils. Her hands snap loose, push at him. He bats them back, shoving her in until she starts to crumple again, sinking slow and sad into the broken glass.
Poor Honey, he starts to think, then stops himself.
Enough of that now.
He twists the key; starts the ignition.
Mass first, then the full Irish. He’s starving now, would eat the hands off a skinny priest.
In the rearview mirror, he doesn’t see her flattened foot in its black shoe uncoil, curling up from the mouth of the bin.
One more gasp at blown-up life—
put your lips together, honey, and
A gull swoops, pecks, punctures.
She sighs.
With Soldiers, in a Cup
i
When we get in, the house is even quieter than usual and there’s a dank smell lurking about, mushroomy and unpleasant, that I feel I should recognise but don’t. The curtains in the front room are drawn, shutting out the miserable view. No deserted beach, no grey sea behind it. An overhead bulb glares and in its uneasy light I see dents in the rented walls, corners peeling off the wallpaper, stuffing springing loose from the sofa. The African sculptures Uncle Mick brought back from the missions hunker on the little ledge under the frosted partition window. They look obscene in the artificial light, alien and dangerous.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ whispers Jeanette, meaning the light. I nod. Mam never puts on the overhead. It’s always low lamps and candles. Cosy, she calls it. Christ, you used to say, it’s like a bloody mausoleum. And I hate you again, a bit, like I did then, for slagging off her yearning to recreate a childhood that never fully existed in the first place.
Jeanette and I are huddled together on the threshold, little girls again. Da is sitting in his raggedy armchair beside the empty fireplace, head in his hands. Small and grey, like a collapsed version of himself. He looks abject, the way he used to after he’d been hitting her. The ghost of Fighting Past.
Outside, there’s a squelching click as Steve presses the fob and the four-by-four snaps into central locking. A scrunch as he walks up the gravel path and into the hallway behind us. Neither Jeanette nor I turn. Steve makes a whooshing sound with his breath, like a sigh, and alerted, Da raises his eyes. They are red-rimmed, his irises so blue they hurt to look at. I think of unhatched eggs; no longer edible, not quite chick. I think of the interrupted thread in the chatroom, blinking at me from my laptop at home, and I have to force myself not to turn and go.
Da lifts his arms. His hands are shaking. Jeanette pushes past me. ‘You poor thing,’ she says and folds him in her arms, eyes wet. She releases him, pulls up a poof, plumps herself down. I move in for my turn and he half-stands. The hug is awkward. He stinks of whiskey and aftershave and feels hard and tight, a dense ball of fury. I retrieve myself as soon as I can. Jeanette takes his hands and, like a nun helping a pilgrim into the baths at Lourdes, guides him back down. I balance on the edge of his armrest.
His hand searches for my knee and I feel the stub where he lost the top of his little finger to the lathe rub against my skin. The story starts again, this time his version. It’s pretty much the same as Jeanette’s, earlier that morning – doctor, pills, crying, crying – but in Da’s mouth it’s grown. My father: Master of the Story, of the Comforting Meal, of the Righteous Fist. He tells it so well I feel the savour of it pop on my tongue. Jeanette is good with him. I find myself astonished, again, at her skill. Keeps nodding, holding his hands, doesn’t butt in. I feel wrong on the armrest, as if my seatbones belong to someone else. I wish I’d had the foresight to claim the poof. I wish I hadn’t obeyed their summons. I stare at the carpet. There’s a wine stain near my feet, shaped like a map of Portugal.
Ut tensio, sic vis.
Hooke’s Law of Elasticity. I boned up on it in the early days, surprising you. I had been fascinated by what you did, and presented my pilfered knowledge – ta-dah – like a courtship bouquet. Extension, I announced, is directly proportional to force. Meaning: the more elastic a material, the harder you push it, the farther it stretches before it snaps.<
br />
They’d called down to me, early. A dawn raid, six thirty. I’ve never known why we do it, why we can’t just phone, why we pick the most ungodly hour in the day to pass on the bad news, but that’s family. Moving in mysterious ways.
I was awake in the chatroom, reading the threads again, when I heard Mixie growl out the back. Then, at the front door, the banging started. Steve, doing his wife’s bidding. I recognised his knock straightaway: my brother-in-law has a very specific way of doing nearly everything, way too diffident before he gets way too loud. The reason he knocked, in case you’re wondering, is the bell. It’s still there, but stopped working right after the builders came.
A superstitious person would have blamed you for that, instead of the rookie sparks who’d been too cocky with his pliers. The dead don’t like change, such a person might say. Maybe that’s why those left behind are supposed to sit tight. Don’t sell, don’t emigrate, don’t change your hairstyle. People like me, unbelievers, people who are uncomfortable talking about the dead in the present tense, say that’s just psychology, nothing to do with the supernatural. You sit tight in case you make a mistake, do something you will later regret. If I could have sat, believe me, I would have. But you left a mess, Conor. A total shambles.
‘Mmm,’ said Jeanette when I’d told her. ‘D’you think that’s wise, Annie? I mean, the last thing you want now is more upheaval. What you need is to rewind.’
Like I was a piece of oldschool videotape some lazy customer had forgotten to spool back to the start.
‘But if you’re determined to do it, you could always…’
Please, Jeanette. Don’t.
Stay with us a while.
‘It’s fine, it’ll give me something to do,’ I’d said, pushing away Mixie’s needy nose. And not thinking about that bloody contract at all, I swear. ‘Anyway, it’s a small job. It’s not even a proper extension.’
And yes, but eight months later, it’s still unfinished. A plague of small jobs, breeding like rabbits. Sockets that need repositioning, patches of duff plasterwork, the no-man’s land backyard and that broken bell.
Steve’s rhythm on the door shifted, from polite to obnoxious. The lines of sans-serif font in the chatroom flickered. Mixie barked louder. Fuck off, you dozy mutt, I thought, and it was a dare.
Do you remember the first time they called up? You and me at twenty-five in that cheap flat in Phibby, post-pub, two or three or something a.m., winding ourselves down after what you used to call a dirty filthy ride. Their voices outside.
‘Ann! Ann!’
Pebbles on the windowpane.
‘Ann!’
I’d been reading Stephen King, thought it was a tommyknocker coming to get you. You got up, pulled the curtain.
‘Christ. It’s your fucking sister.’
The hospital bleak and yellow-green under the fluorescent lights. Smelling of sick people, panic and death. Doctors, officious, bleary-eyed. Nurses with kind, sympathetic expressions. Da, face like putty, a tube up his nose. His heart, they said. Mam, always the silent one, the one who never lost control, sitting by the bed, holding his hand.
‘How are you, Mam?’
A nod. That was all.
This morning, they weren’t in a rush. It wasn’t that kind of call, the bring out the cavalry summons. It was just—
‘Mam’s not great,’ said Jeanette. ‘Da’s been on the blower to me and I thought you should be kept in the loop. Steve wasn’t sure, you know, but…’
She shot an awkward glance at Steve. But the Tile King of Skerries was gazing out the French window installed by Cowboys Inc., at Mixie panting and mugging in the darkness. His hands in his pockets were fondling his change; it made a soft, liquidy sort of music as it clunked against his bollocks. At each clunk, Mixie’s silly ears pricked. Mutt’s Theme.
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Then, before she could ask why couldn’t I, or did I need anything, to talk or, or why did I let them bang so long, I offered them tea. Jeanette lit up.
‘Ooh, yeah.’
I noticed she’d put on weight, especially around the middle, though her face seemed thinner, even more like Mam’s. Maybe she was pregnant again.
The freezer gurgled. My head began to hurt.
I sloshed hot water into the mugs. The teabags hissed. White, three sugars for Jeanette. ‘Just black,’ said Steve, pulling out a chair. ‘I’m on the almond milk.’ He rubbed his gut. Mixie whined. He glanced back.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Poor Mitzi.’
Oh who’s a good girl, who’s my baby girl.
Jeanette took a sip, made a shape with her mouth. Lowered her voice, drawing me in. ‘Poor Da, Annie. Couldn’t sleep a wink last night. She kept crying and…’
And so it starts. My sister, who can talk for Ireland. There was a time I was like that, Mam used to say, though we never believed her.
I can’t, I wanted to say. I have stuff on, Jeanette. I need to reorganise where to put everything in my brand-new kitchen, or half-brand-new, because I don’t like it, not one bit, and it’s because all the things are in the wrong place, I’m sure of that, and I’ve to chase the builders, to finish all the crap on the snaglist, there’s so much left undone, Jeanette, you wouldn’t believe it. And I’ve homework to correct, though, yes, I know it’s half-term, but classes to plan for after the Easter break, and a walk, Jeanette, I have to walk Mixie, I’m not walking her enough, I’m, yes, neglecting that stupid dog, and I don’t want to go up there today, or any day, to the grey peninsula and our dysfunctional parents, that’s not on my list, and I’ve things to think about, things I really don’t want to, but if I don’t get cracking on them now, I may never, because you see, extension, Jeanette, it has multiple interpretations, and ever since the builders came, that fucking contract has been worming its way through my mind, telling me I might have got it wrong, Jeanette, and Conor too, and yes, that could just mean you’re right again, more upheaval again, except—
Except time unspools and I am back by the phone, nine months ago, in August, listening to the young nurse with the red hair who you always liked, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, just this: the dog’s breath, panting, or is it mine?, the bite of the receiver against my ear, like a hard thumb pushing at that tender part of my skull, and before me, the tentative steps of a fly, making its oddly catlike way up the lace curtain of our front window.
‘Okay,’ I said, reaching for my coat.
Jeanette and Steve looked at each other.
‘Eh…’ started Steve, glancing at his watch, one of those full-on divers’ contraptions, and I knew. They weren’t going up there till later. This was just the advance notice, to ensure I couldn’t duck out.
Jeanette cut in. ‘I know, Annie love. But Steve thinks they’ll be fine for a while. She’s taken a few more of those pills, so he’s probably over the hump by now. We were thinking…’
‘Elevenish?’ Steve tapped on his watch.
‘Perfect,’ I said, looking at him. Though I haven’t been able to look him in the eye for ages, so I stared at his mouth instead: the ugly moist lips, the dandruffy flakes of dried coconut collecting in his moustache.
They left, and through the French window, I sensed, rather than saw, the day begin. It was going to be a piggy one. Overcast and cold. The chaos of the yard started to materialise. I turned my back on it.
Mixie barked.
Feed the fucking dog, Annie, I heard you scream.
I don’t believe in ghosts, never have. The living are scary enough. But I made sure to keep my gaze from that back window, as I began to dust, dust, dust.
ii
‘It’s been going on for ages.’
Da is looking at me.
I have missed something. I am confused. ‘Ages?’ I don’t ask what ‘It’ means.
Jeanette shrugs, uncomfortable. ‘Well, up to now, you know, we didn’t want to. Eh.’
Bother you.
Christ.
Da’s hand moves from my knee,
takes my fingers. ‘See, she hasn’t been great since Hallowe’en, Annie. Since the—’
Steve clears his throat.
‘Accident,’ Jeanette starts to say, crisply, but I override her.
‘You mean the stroke.’ The word feels odd in my mouth but my voice sounds fine. It sounds like it belongs to someone who can say these things. I take a breath and now I’m ready to ask – something, anything – when Da begins to cry. Up to his old tricks, shifting focus. Look at my pain.
‘Months this is been going on, love. She wouldn’t get out of bed, didn’t want to talk. I mean, she’s never been a great talker, but…’ He tightens his grip, his gnawed fingernails digging into my skin. ‘Last night I made her a fry-up, tomatoes and everything, but she wouldn’t touch a thing. Started crying, wouldn’t stop. She says she wants to die.’
They’re all staring at me now, worried. The mushroomy smell in the room has got worse. Da starts to shudder. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if she goes, I can’t…’
‘Now, Da,’ says Jeanette. ‘No need to panic. The doctor said—’
‘The fuck those bastards know.’ His eyes, boiling with rage, find mine.
In the picture frame over his head I see Steve’s face, gooey and useless. I pull away my hand and rise. I’m clumsy, all over the place, and my foot knocks against the coal bucket, making it ring like a communion bell. Da blinks.
‘Annie, love—’
I can’t help, I should say. Get someone else. ‘I’d better…’ I make a pointless gesture towards the stairs.
Jeanette half-rises. ‘D’you want me to—’
‘No.’
Da slumps back. I walk across the sitting room, past the bockety suite, the cheap MDF bookcase holding Da’s old boxing medals and the pictures of me and Jeanette in Irish Dancing costumes at the Feis and the pretty rose-patterned china that came from our granny in the North. At the doorway, Steve shimmies out of my way, the change in his pocket tinkling like a wind-chime. Mutt’s Theme, Second Movement.
Shift Page 20
