Shift

by Mia Gallagher

  You started saying something else, and I wish now I’d let you speak. Then you stopped and stood and picked up the pan that was still sizzling in the sink and you looked at me, and together we smelt your unfeeling flesh as it cooked through to the bone.

  That evening, I went to see our least-wacky alternative person, the shiatsu lady in Terenure. She did some muscle testing and told me that I needed to work on my boundaries.

  ‘You have to hold back,’ she said. ‘If you don’t want to go down with him.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But that doesn’t make sense. I’m not the one who’s sick.’

  The shiatsu lady hesitated. Then she started talking about how we all have places inside us which are well and sick. Think of them as territories, she said, separated by a wall. One side a garden, the other a jungle. With a stroke, literally, the wall gets a knock. The structure weakens. Another stroke, another knock. Then it’s just a question of time. ‘Beyond a certain point,’ she said, ‘there’s only so much I can do. But I’ll ask you this, Ann: why would anyone make an effort to stay in a garden if they could just walk straight into a jungle and do what they wanted there?’

  ‘You’re making it sound like he’s doing this,’ I said.

  No, she said.

  Well, she said.

  Maybe, she said. The thing is with madness, she said, and her voice had a snake-oil salesman edge that I didn’t like, is—

  ‘Hang on a second,’ I said. ‘Who said anything about madness? His condition is physical.’

  She sighed and before she could start explaining again, how illness was not just a physical thing, and how we were all sick in some way or other, I stood up and walked out.

  When I got home, you were sitting in the back room, zapping the TV. Your bandaged hand lay on your lap. Mixie was nuzzling it, stupid cow-eyes gazing up at you. I’d swear she was crying. The TV screen shuddered, sending blue shadows across the walls and the plastic sheeting that hid the hole you’d ripped in our wall. Spilling mottled flashes of slideshow out into the remnants of my garden, across the bags of cement, the half-dug foundations, the muddy trench beginnings of your dream extension. As you zapped, I imagined you pressing the switches inside your mind. Jungle, garden. Off on. Illuminating each part of the damaged cortex in its own patch of interrogation-room light, checking to see if anything was still in place. Garden, jungle. On off.

  Plan B, lost in rubble.

  Multiple Choice:

  • Discard after death.

  • Allow to be used after death.

  I have thought, many times, about which box I would have ticked if I was you. I’d like to do a survey, ask men and women that question, ask them to answer honestly.

  iii

  There’s a movement in the bed, so small it’s almost soundless. I’ve always gone along with the family line, thought of Mam as a quiet woman, but it’s only here, in the absence of words, that I realise how she is almost never silent. Maybe, back in those Olden Times that she’s tried so hard to recreate with her low lamps and daisy-patterned oilcloth, she did used to talk for Ireland as a girl, but lowered her voice when she met our Da, so her constant talk, like the rainy season in monsoon countries, took on the illusion of silence. Under the duvet, her shape rises and falls and I can’t help remembering the conversations we used to have when I was a teenager, in the damp little kitchen of the old house, the one Da pissed down the drain on the gambling debts and toxic assets. We’d hold hands while she told me what he had done or not done. Rare morsels of advice. Don’t ever go for a man with a temper, Annie. Your sister won’t listen to me, but I know you will. Always trust in love.

  Such simple things. So inadequate. When we were younger, she’d been full of Do’s and Don’ts: Don’t speak with your mouth full, don’t call your granny names, give a nice smile to the priest, keep your mouth closed while you’re eating, make sure your room is tidy. And later, mainly at Jeanette: don’t wear that skirt, don’t come back too late, don’t bring him into this house. Trust in love. I should have asked her. What on earth does that mean, Mam?

  She would listen, though, especially when we had stuff going on with boyfriends, jobs, bosses, friends. She’d pat our shoulders, make cups of tea, but never say anything that helped, not really. I rarely talked to her about you. By the time we’d met, I’d decided she had too many of her own problems. Besides, by then I knew that anything I told her, she’d have to screen, decide whether she could pass it on to Da or not. Only later did I realise that during those teenage years when she told me what he’d done, she’d been screening that too. Checking in with some part of herself to see what was safe to say. Oh no, love, he’s not an alcoholic. He just likes his drink.

  The year Jeanette failed her Leaving Cert, Mam kept the exam results in a drawer for a month. Protect us. Keep the wolf from the door, the knock from the window, the phone off the hook, the red letter in the bin.

  Her breathing grows more regular. The curtain shifts. A chink of light illuminates her hair, grey at the roots, as it moves on the pillow.

  My mouth opens, surprising me. ‘Remember.’ My voice sounds rusty. ‘Remember that story you told us, Mam? About how you were the first girl in Belfast with a peroxide dye?’

  The duvet rises, falls.

  ‘It was just before you went to England. You’d gone to the hairdressers with that girl, what was her name?’

  Minnie? Molly? ‘Mary. Mary Deane, yes, and you decided to give it a go. She chickened out but you went ahead. You were…’ I hesitate.

  Fearless.

  No movement from the duvet. ‘There’s a picture of you, remember? You loved showing it to us when we were little. Sunday afternoons. It’s the two of you walking the pier in Morecombe. You looked so…’

  I struggle.

  ‘Your hair was like Marilyn Monroe’s. Remember? You were laughing. You’d this dark lipstick on. In the photo it looked black. Your teeth were so white. You were wearing…’

  Fifties court shoes. A belted raincoat. A headscarf.

  ‘Funny, headscarves look so—’

  Tragic.

  ‘—old, they look so old on women, but on girls, they’re just.’ I take a chance. ‘Gorgeous.’

  I sit in the spicy, stinking darkness and tell her stories. After the third stroke sent you to the hospital, I did the same with you, every night before you went to sleep in that swish semi-private ward, five floors up with its lovely bird’s eye view of the city.

  A bit of a rest, they’d said. For both of us. They didn’t want to put you into a psychiatric unit because, the consultant insisted, your condition was a physical one. I thought of your silence, your refusal to speak to anyone except that dog. I thought of the shiatsu lady and I wanted to laugh and I wanted to hit myself too. This would help, they said. You would have twenty-four hour access to support, constant monitoring. The problem was, nobody could smell it there, the crap eating through the walls in your head. The stink of disinfectant and old men’s shit was too strong.

  Remember, I would say to you.

  Remember this. Remember that. Conor, remember. It was like talking to a stone. At some point, I ran out of words. Something seized my throat, squeezing my ribs, and I realised I had to get out.

  Mam, I want to say now. Tell me. Should I fight for him, that bit of him left frozen? Should I go for it, Mam? Plan C? Get a lawyer, cry crocodile tears. Beg them, bully them, force them to thaw him?

  You lay your cold hand on the back of my neck to stop me, but even without it, I know these questions aren’t any of her business.

  I bend close to her face, plant a kiss on her forehead. Her skin is papery and, under the scent of the madhouse, smells of something flowery. In her right temple throbs a small blue worm.

  iv

  Downstairs, things seem calmer. Jeanette has opened the curtains and Da is sipping coffee. His hands are still shaking but there’s some colour in his cheeks. Steve is sitting on the sofa across from him, leaning forward. He’s in the midd
le of saying something. I only catch a bit before Jeanette looks up, nudges him and he stops talking. They’re too late. The unfinished phrase screams across the room, jagged as a jigsaw piece.

  ‘Ah, Annie.’ Da turns, his eyes cloudy and unaware. ‘So what do you think about that?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘We’re just,’ starts Jeanette.

  ‘I’ve just been having a little chat with Steve here,’ says Da. ‘And he thinks you know, if she wants to be committed, then. Well.’

  I stare.

  Steve clears his throat. ‘I’ve been telling Tom that I’ve had, eh, some experience of this sort of thing, and one thing I’d say now it’s. Eh. The sort of thing you can’t deal with on your own.’ His tongue darts out, licks his upper lip. ‘For everyone’s sake, Annie.’

  What did he call me?

  Jeanette smiles. It looks painful. ‘Now, Ann, Steve’s only saying—’

  Steve glances at Jeanette, back at me. ‘I didn’t mean— Jesus, Annie, love, I wasn’t talking about Conor.’ His face reddens. He nods at Da. ‘Sorry, Tom, pardon my French. It’s my younger brother, Ann. That’s what I was telling Tom. If he didn’t have them looking after him… He’s ah – he’s not been well for years, see. Schizophrenia.’

  Jesus, I think. Save us. In the back of my mind I hear the shiatsu woman laugh.

  Jeanette’s cheeks are pink. ‘The family don’t like to talk about it…’

  Steve interrupts. ‘You know, too many people in this fucking country don’t like to talk about stuff, and if you ask me, it’s—’

  His voice is too loud for the room. He stops.

  Da wants us to stay for tea. Some lovely salad sandwiches, a bit of that nice cheddar, few juicy spoons of chopped onion, tomato and cucumber. Jeanette’s face lights up. She’s always been easy to comfort: a biscuit, a sandwich, a sugary cup of tea. And I think about it, for a second I do, but Steve is already checking his watch again and making noises about not wanting to leave the kids on their own for too long.

  Jeanette holds Da’s hands. ‘Now, love, you look after yourself.’

  Steve nods. ‘It’ll blow over, Tom. Just get her looked after by the professionals.’

  He’s right, though it scalds me to admit it.

  I’ve got my coat on and Steve is busy revving the four-by-four when Da appears at the front door. I half-turn. ‘I’ll call you soon, Daddy,’ I start to say, but Da has already opened his arms. I step in. Under the layers of clothes, I feel his hard chest. Under that, his heart; a mirror of my own, pounding with remorse.

  It was a success, the guests agreed. The catering was terrific. The priest got drunk and tried to feel up an old schoolfriend of mine you’d never met. But sure, priests do that, don’t they? Number 2 on the bucket list. Later, when there were only a few stragglers left, we sat in the comfortable leather sofas in your parents’ sitting room and shared anecdotes. Your cousins had the best, shocking your mother with stories of illicit smoking and drinking, attempts at running away, unsuitable girlfriends, mitched exams, job interviews that never happened. I’d heard most of them before but not all, and they did the trick. It felt almost good to laugh among the hardening crusts of egg sandwiches and iced fancies.

  They asked if I wanted to stay with them, but I refused. I got a cab home, and the house looked different, like it belonged to someone else.

  I couldn’t sleep. At about two, I gave up and went downstairs to sit in our old back room, looking out through the hole in the wall at the rubble in the garden. There wasn’t much to see. Mixie was blocking the view, lying there morose, jaw on front paws. Behind her the plastic sheeting blurred everything beyond, dim shapes of dark blue. Move, I said, but your stupid dog ignored me. I lit a fag, from a pack I’d wangled off your cousin, and when I finished it, I lit another. The room filled slowly with blue haze, mocking all those years I’d struggled to stay nicotine-free, all the pounds I’d gained in so doing. It must have been a bit cold, but I didn’t feel it. I heard a breeze start and I got up, nudging Mixie out of the way so I could take down some of the sheeting to let in the air.

  Outside, the moon looked as if it was racing through the sky, chased by the clouds. It was almost full. Thirteen-fourteenths, I used to say, irritating you. Jesus, Annie, you’d say, it’s not a question of fourteenths; then you’d explain, yet again, how the moon is in constant motion, changing by the moment, not the day.

  I stood at the ragged hole and tried to remember what your skin had felt like warm. Mixie’s ears pricked. She whined. Then, suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, she lunged out into the back and started howling, teeth dripping at the moon, and, in that instant, a chorus joined her. Every dog in the neighbourhood.

  The moon came and went under the clouds, the smoke eased into my lungs and Mixie and her infernal chorus sang. I imagined the sea near my parents’ house, crazy. The wind rose and for one wild moment I contemplated taking off all my clothes, clambering out into the garden and dancing naked in the half-built foundations, joining that stupid bitch, adding my own keening howl to her chorus, offering my blood to the moon if she could bring you back. But the moment passed, leaving me shivering in that sensible Penneys’ nightie you’d always hated, so I put the sheeting up again, marooning your pet outside, and sat back down in your armchair, ignoring those scrabbling claws, waiting for the day to break.

  The four-by-four smells of sour milk and children’s farts. I watch the evening lower, the March clouds deadweight onto the grey horizon, and wonder if I should have said something more to Da. Something definitive, or just something.

  There was a time when I didn’t have to have answers. When I was just a kid, and all I knew were childish things, like how to beat my big sister at hopscotch and what tasted better – boiled egg in a cup or boiled egg with soldiers.

  Jeanette is rabbiting on about Steve’s younger brother. The one his family never talks about. I’ve never seen him, he wasn’t at our wedding, not even at theirs. Maybe, I think, he’s a figment of Steve’s imagination.

  ‘He was grand till he was twenty-two, Ann. Then it started. Thinking about the same things over and over.’

  ‘Obsessing,’ says Steve.

  I have a vague memory of Steve trying to say something to me at the funeral, but I hadn’t wanted to talk. Was this it, Misery Top Trumps?

  ‘They got him into a centre,’ says Jeanette. ‘And it’s fantastic, Annie. He’s been right as rain ever since.’

  ‘Well not really,’ says Steve. ‘You couldn’t say that.’

  Jeanette coughs. There’s a long silence.

  I look up at the rearview mirror and see Steve’s eyes looking straight into mine. They are clear green, like the river on a cool autumn morning.

  The old tape has begun to spool again, hammering at the inside of my head. If I hadn’t stayed away that night, if I’d got there earlier that morning, if I’d only said something. Hooke’s Law, converse of: release the force and the elastic rebounds. I close my eyes and once more see the tape rewind. The clocks start; pulse, synapse, breath. Your broken body unpeels from its sprawled shadow, bungeeing away from the pavement’s cracked kiss. You soar up, five flights high, and hover before the opened window with its lovely panoramic view of the city. In that first moment of your leap a hawk, your limbs stretched, your body whole again, your face beautiful in the dawn light. Then—

  Then what?

  Ah Quasimodo, hobbled again in your hospital bed.

  An hour to go before the funeral. I kneel in front of your walnut bureau, piles of sorted clutter behind me, and I see it. The file, the box, your neat X.

  v

  Charcoal branches, grey sky. A cardboard pine tree, swinging in front of a windscreen. In the rearview, Steve’s eyes, green and clear.

  She needs proper care, he’d been saying when I came down the stairs. Maybe a secure unit. Especially if she’s thinking of taking her own…

  Then Jeanette had stopped him.

  Life, I think, staring at
him, willing you, whatever you are, to think it too.

  When we get back, it’s six thirty. Twelve hours since the first knock. I don’t bother asking them in for a cup of tea. Too much hassle, and anyway they’ve the kids to feed and wash and, and, and.

  I go to the back, release the latch.

  Mixie bounds in and covers me with messy kisses.

  Baby girl, baby girl, I say. And then – stupid me – I start crying.

  Publishing Credits

  An early version of ‘More Often in Future’, entitled ‘The Demons’, was published in Writing Ulster No. 2/3 (1991/1992).

  ‘Polyfilla’ first appeared in Let’s Be Alone Together, edited by Declan Meade (Stinging Fly, 2008).

  An earlier version of ‘Found Wanting’ was Editor’s Choice in Franklin’s Grace & Other Stories (Fish Publishing, 2003).

  A shorter version of ‘Shift’, entitled ‘Maybe’, was awarded the START Fiction chapbook prize (2005) together with ‘All Bones’ and ‘You First’. The three stories were published in a chapbook You First (South Tipperary Arts Centre, 2005). ‘All Bones’ was first published in Feathers and Cigarettes (Fish Publishing, 2004) as a runner-up for the Fish Prize 2003.

  ‘Departure’ first appeared in The Sunday Tribune (1990), where it was shortlisted for a New Irish Writing Award.

  An early version of ‘Lure’ appeared in Circle and Square, edited by Eileen Casey (Fiery Arrow Press, 2015).

  An early version of ‘Headhunter’ was published in Carve Magazine (Vol. 4, No. 5, 2003).

  ‘Trust in Me’ originally appeared in Numero Cinq (Vol. VIII, No. 1, 2017).

  ‘The Lady, Vanishing’ first appeared in Spolia, Disappearance Issue (2014).

  An early version of ‘With Soldiers, in a Cup’, entitled ‘Quasimodo’, was shortlisted for the Trevor/Bowen Award. This version was published in Spolia, The Wife Issue (2013); later that year Spolia reproduced the story as a limited edition chapbook, Quasimodo, with illustrations by US-based artist Kirsten Stolle.