Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

  For a while, hard and fast tasks kept her mind occupied, angry but occupied. She brushed the floor, nearly lifting the tiles. She scrubbed the grooves between each tile fiercely ’til she saw her finger bleed at the cuticle and she let the blood go into the grooves of the tile. Now he’d find the stain of his actions underneath his feet.

  Most of all, she hadn’t paid attention.

  She’d look at that stain and remember to pay attention.

  The first day after Red’s revelation she cut chunks from his potatoes. Knobbled them, deformed. She added salt to the butter and allowed an insect to cook with his cabbage.

  The second day she omitted to place tea in the pot and when he lifted it he uttered a cry. It’s empty! There’s nothing in it! which reminded her he must have issued a cry the first time he pushed himself into Red the Twit. Perhaps he was surprised to find himself there? She wondered whether or how he would have made it in.

  The fourth day she reduced the teabags inside the pot to one, and he commented the tea had gone very weak, as though it was being controlled by the weather or an outside force. He did not lift the lid of the pot, because he was not accustomed to doing such things for himself.

  The fifth day she left him no dinner and caught the 4 pm bus to Dublin to visit Jimmy, her son.

  Episode 5

  With no sign of her, Himself phoned.

  —She’s here, Jimmy held out the phone. She shook her head.

  —She’s in the toilet. She’ll give you a ring back. Her son lied for her, precisely how she has trained him. And when he replaced the phone asked nothing, only said I’ll put on the kettle for tea and then we’ll head into town.

  That night Jimmy brought her out. There’s no question, I’m bringin’ you out, he said, proud. They caught the bus, down the quays, by Trinity, when she saw them. Pink words, neon, beaming from the wall.

  —Lookit the pink light what is it? She read the words I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for all their learning.

  —The city is lit up with them, Jimmy said. They’re all over the place.

  She craned her neck across, scanned the pub roof opposite, but couldn’t find the source.

  —What is it? Where is it coming from?

  —I dunno, Jimmy said, but it’s so pretty. Jimmy dropped his head to squint the last triangular moment of it and then gone. All gone. She wanted more of it.

  —There are nine of them apparently, another one by the Martello Tower. It took me weeks to notice them and now I look for them every time. We’ll go tomorrow, we’ll go and look for them.

  —I won’t go home ’til I see them all, she said quietly. The words were for her, she wouldn’t give the snap of her fingers for many’s the thing, I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for the swaying, I wouldn’t give the snap of my fingers to get the skirt off Red the Twit.

  Jimmy already had a plan to meet the lads in town and she insisted he not cancel it.

  —We’ll be going to a bar mam, are you sure?

  She bought knitting needles in town and started work on a jumper while he socialized with the lads. They were young, they were young lads, all of them. Their faces freshly shaved and the funny thing was the bar was full of men, there were few women. And they’d teeshirts about them. And security guards. A few had bald heads and earrings and the like. But they were pleasant, laughed together. One slid his hand along Jimmy’s forearm as he rose from the table to go to the toilet and kept his body close to him, as he passed, not making the normal polite dip away to avoid his bum scraping the man’s chest. She caught it, squinted away from it to her wool, and created a new box to put it in.

  She continued to knit as the music grew pumpy though she could no longer hear every word of the conversation. But they were lovely to her the fellas, admired her knitting, asked her questions. One said his mam was a farmer too, asked her about headage. And what did she think of the EEC? And was Jimmy a member of Macra na Feirme? And how his father made him join it and everyone erupted at the invocation and joked about whether he’d fancied the chairman. She didn’t understand every word because of the noise, so she nodded and smiled if they looked at her. Eventually they settled back into each other and forgot about her. Every now and then Jimmy asked her if she wanted another red lemonade.

  The other lads headed on to a club and hugged Jimmy goodbye. She wondered was it strange to see fellas hug. She didn’t go in for the hugging in a big way. It was a bit of a palaver. They grabbed the bus to Rathmines and Jimmy talked about this lad and that lad and how he knew him from college.

  The following morning she was up and ready to go home, offered no explanation to Jimmy for the sudden visit, but when he accompanied her to the bus station, he took care to wait and see she made it onto the bus, bought her a Double Decker chocolate bar and a copy of Woman’s Weekly for the journey. And he waved, he waved her all the way out of the bus station and then ran through the doors out the far side, weaving among the smokers and their luggage, to wave her from the other side as the bus turned on Gardener street, the Loopline bridge behind it. She could still see him waving as the windows swallowed up The Customs House and the bump over the Liffey. All was not well and he knew it.

  The bus took a detour down Burgh Quay, was this a detour, or was this the route? She can’t recall the route. When they passed O’Connell Bridge she peered out the left side to see is there any hint of where Bewley’s once stood with it’s milky coffee eyed students remembering how she didn’t like the smell of the place, the stink of dropped milk, like there were spots they could never scrub it out of. She marveled at the memory of the girls in their get-up, all black and white aproned and Spanish as soon as they spoke with their th lispy English, all that coffee and ordinary women like her in for the tea, yes tea. She considered tea. She left him only four bags all the while knowing he’d need six. Would he have rummaged to find where she’d hidden the box? Would he have driven to the garage (shop) and if he did, which brand would he have bought? Lyons, green or gold blend or Barry’s would he have seen the box, does he even know the tea they drink? The nip of anxiety hastened and she worried about the post. The postman would have knocked the kitchen window as he passed, giving her the time she needed to put the tea towel down and go out to the back door and grab the letters from him. Would the postman have knocked the window found her not there and stuck them under the plant pot? Would they be dripping wet? What if it was the television license demand? Her husband insists he will not pay for the telly license, but unbeknownst they have one. And if the renewal came these two days would he enrage and rip it up? And what of the kettle? Would he have boiled the bloody thing dry? And those carrots wrapped in plastic in the drawer of the fridge, she must remember them today or they’d begin to sweat. Maybe already on the turn? What of the gap in the back door? Would he remember to stick her balled up sock solution into it to prevent the mice from coming in or would the house be hopping with mice when she walked back into it? He wouldn’t have turned off the immersion and it would have run all night. At least she’d have hot water for a bath when she stepped in.

  When it’s back she is, her husband has little to say. He speaks in factual clips.

  I came down to see whether you’d be on the early bus and you are.

  A kind of what about that for a revelation, as he opened the boot of the car. Of the magazine in her hand,

  Give it here to me I’ll put it in the boot.

  —I’ll hold onto it sure, she, clinging to it.

  The nose of the car traces out the bend of the road and gives way, as and when another approaches. You’re so squeezed in these parts, she thinks, there’s no sharing the road, you’ve to roll into the ditch or slide past sheet metal. A neighbour, Matty, chooses the slide, he pulls up and ceases, the window down before he stops.

  —How’re ya getting on?

  Her husband must lean and call to Matty even though he’s right beside him.

  —Where are ya coming from? Matty wants to know. But he doesn’t wai
t for the answer before another ceist lands.

  —Did ya hear poor Dick Gaughan was taken in the night, says Matty.

  —I did not, Her husband. Sure I was down to see was she on the bus and she was. I didn’t hear the notices, sure hadn’t I the house left before they came on. What happened him?

  —I don’t know, I don’t know at all, Matty repeating only that it was on the notices this morning, I am on my way to get the story beyond.

  Almost as an excuse for having nothing to add to the news of poor Dick’s demise, or his having missed the death notices this morning on account of her not being present to turn on the radio for him (she’s certain he omitted to turn it on) her husband shouts over again that he hasn’t heard.

  I hadn’t heard I had not, he repeats. Sure she was up in Dublin, I’m only after fetching her from the bus, up visiting Jimmy she was. I didn’t know would she be on the early bus, I only went down on the chance to see was she and she was.

  And she’s livid. She’s livid with no explanation the way she has lived with no explanation. But today will be saved by talk of a funeral, talk of a funeral provides for them all.

  Jimmy phoned, he phoned while his father was out in the fields.

  —No, no I don’t want to speak to him. How are you?

  He inquired again and again. Grand, she said, I’m grand. I had a good time with you and we must do it more often. I’d love a picnic in the Botanic Gardens, just the two of us. But he doesn’t extend another invitation. Instead he asked again whether all is well? I’d love to see those pink signs again, she replied. What were the words? Repeat them to me. The one above City Hall. And the other on the bar.

  —There was none on the bar mam, Jimmy said softly.

  —God bless now, she told Jimmy as she closed the line. She promised to write him a letter tomorrow. He loves letters does Jimmy. I’m seeing them pink words everywhere, she sighed to him. She saw one on the bar alright, no matter that Jimmy didn’t see it, he only had eyes for his lads. She searched for the words. He’ll never find another the like of me to put up with all his nonsense, wasn’t that it?

  Episode 6

  She regards her husband carefully. His face? Droopy. There’s no other word for it. It’s unkind, but the man is droopy. Two long lines surround his mouth, give up to jowls that jostle when he shakes his head. His eyebrows remain above his eyes, but are nothing remarkable. His ears are the only aspect of him unchanged. His forehead and flimsy hair have held up well, but when she takes it all in she cannot fathom how or why another woman would let him near her. There’s so little to recommend him. And yet a woman has taken him and he has taken this woman and there’s nothing for it, she must investigate the very bones of this transaction. She must undress this mystery vest to its threads. She can stand here in this kitchen and continue to know nothing, or she can head off out into the world and figure this muck out.

  I would have to go out and figure this muck out.

  At the time I began looking and carefully looking: Himself slid to sitting. In his sitting he was constantly looking. And where I was once looking only at him, now I was looking at everything but: I was looking out from him.

  I, still furious, took a while to notice that he was now seated.

  As I had stood up, he, strangely, had sat down, sat right down and stared.

  And I hadn’t done anything yet.

  Still he caught my eye.

  The first morning he stared into the middle distance like he was examining dust in the air, waiting on it to form an image, a message, an answer.

  Slowly he emitted. Dribbles at first. After Tuesday’s auction in Ballina: a man by name, the price not got, on the cow so deserved, the sinking of them all. Everything handed across to the fate of another’s cow that didn’t sell at a fair price because at that time there wasn’t a fair price to be got. We’re being skinned, he said. Farmers are being skinned alive.

  I remaining furious, paid little heed. I’d paid so much heed, now I was on strike.

  See how I went back and forth?

  I found him sat in the chair in the middle of the night once.

  I went to bed with him still sat in the chair and woke to find him still there in the chair.

  I was glad not to share the bed with him. I stretched out and enjoyed myself. But I worried when I saw him in the chair, relentlessly in the chair.

  He started not changing his jumper. Socks stayed on him several days. I could hardly bend down at his feet and remove them. I could have I suppose, but I chose not to. Have her remove them I thought. Had he removed them in the bed of Red the Twit? Let her take them off him.

  I did give in.

  I gave in because the smell off him would knock a pig.

  —Give me those socks you have on ya, I said. He obliged, robotically stretching out his foot so I might retrieve them. And when I saw the state of the feet on him. Painful and neglected they were.

  He was, I must say, obedient in this state and that was not inconvenient. I still hadn’t done anything.

  Soon however it became difficult to watch him sat there and so wasn’t I forced to leave the house. We had swapped: him inside, me having the car, off to Ballina to pick up feed at the Co-op, for the cattle would die for the lack of food and care.

  When I was out and about I began to see an odd cut of the world I’d never noticed. Like Himself advised I would go in and sit places and sometimes have a bowl of soup or a cup of tea for my trouble. Once I even had a piece of pie in the morning.

  And since he wasn’t rising from the chair I opened the back door and started to attend to things. It wasn’t pleasant nor unpleasant. It was a chore. Another chore. Chore after chore. The neighbours asked after him. And I told them a sort of truth.

  —Sure he’s killt with all the work, I said.

  Oh it’s a killer, they all agreed.

  —It’d drive you to despair, I said.

  It would, they agreed.

  I was glad to get out and about a bit in it. For too long I had been inside.

  It was more difficult when day after day he sat in the chair. Speechless, he sat. Read the paper without remarking much. Unusual, disturbing. While he was ranting Our Woman worried less. Now she worried hard. She had no idea what to do with him. She thought the cattle prices had him in the chair and sure there was nothing she could do about the cattle prices.

  She sent two cows to the factory without his permission. She got a man to bring them in for her and he docked her money. You don’t get a fair price these days, he said, handing her a pittance. When Our Woman told Himself she’d sent the cows to the factory she hoped it might spur him up from the chair. She hoped it’d make him cross.

  —Very good, he said, you did well. How much did you get? You did well, he repeated, without listening for the answer.

  She elected not to explain that she had to send them because the bills were piling. Nor did she say she’d no idea how long he might sit in the chair and she couldn’t rely that he might feed them into the winter.

  She paid the bills that time. Everything except the phone bill. She left that one to mount.

  If he wasn’t going to do his chores, they still had to be done. Our Woman had to get out and do them.

  Briefly she decided how much feed to buy and whether to treat for fluke.

  And then one day he stood up again and announced he was going to look for a trailer. All would be well if he found a trailer his arm gesture said.

  I had been looking for the muck when I was out and about. I’d paid attention and d’ya know it was going to be a great deal harder than Red the Twit suggested these things were. I had no man express any interest in me, other than throw me the odd sentence at the Co-op between the aisles about the weather or a bit of chatter down the field that usually was only asking after Himself. I’d swear every one of them was in a coma.

  I still could not fathom how he’d done what she proposed he had. I was perplexed agin. Furious and perplexed. But the bigger fear was at me:
would he sit down again? While he was up it was great but if he sat down we’d be sunk. I could not allow for it and a plan formed in my head. A plan that had to be got on with. A hunt.

  In a place with a window that looked out on the street, the hunt commenced so if what Our Woman must watch is too unpalatable, she can avert her gaze. She began in the place where all of it commenced, that bar of the hotel where Red the Twit originally found her. The place she sat down for soup. She began where he told her to begin. In the window. Everything is in the window.

  Beside her a conversation unrolled about what happened behind a nightclub last night. It was unpalatable, so she looked out the window. If she was forever looking out the window, how would her hunt begin?

  It took a further six weeks and three bowls of soup over a few visits to the same place, just as she’d concluded it untenable, then she spied one, ginger haired male, humpy towards mid forty, who it transpired came through the hotel near weekly. A greeting card sales-man, fat fingered, with wide thumbnails she noted each time she saw him drinking a cup of tea.

  It wouldn’t be long now, for what would a blabbing fella like that do here, in this place, at night, only be hanging about, so certainly, when she went into town, whether it was for animal feed or the library, she carefully positioned herself in that place with a cup of tea, late afternoons, every week, and tracked his movements.