Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

Lonely and predictable he was, having no one to care of in the town, except the shopkeepers he visited every few weeks to hawk his cards at, and talk his do you know any Haggerty’s in Cobh conversations – so her presence eventually led to nods and greeting. Being a salesman, he was swiftly stirred to sell her something. Velvet cards, he tossed. Had she heard of such a thing?

  She listened with is that right curiosity in her face, solemnly infused with language of feigned interest (perky question) and deep attention (would you ever, I never knew that now, very interesting). She used the good eyes God gave her to stare at him. This fella needed attention the way birds need nests, so he’d pick and pluck and lift and twist whatever he could grab. He couldn’t grab much blather from Our Woman as she’s unusually careful in what she’ll reveal in this instance, having in her mind a much greater purpose for him that required little in the way of discussion and more in the way of disrobing. Her strategy was to keep him on this path. When he talked of the velvet cards he could order for her, his tale of how he’d the official business and the sideline and he was talking to her now about his sideline she told him warmly hadn’t he great initiative, while noticing the collar of his shirt very mucky on the inside by his neck where he sweated. No woman to mind his collar, or no woman properly attending to them. He was a sweaty man, but he’d do. She contemplated her strategy of what she needed to do with this moist, nervy salesman, while he persisted with the line his cards could change the lives of many around her. She half listened, and mentally bumped brain to limbs and decided today, yes today would be the day to move toward him and collect whatever she needed. She had to be clear and strategic about what she was looking to understand. She hesitated. Could she stomach licking such a dense specimen, as the licking according to Red the Twit’s description would be required. However, more heartily came the thought, surely he’d do, because she was looking for a quick insight, not a thesis on the matter. Thus she swallowed and tolerated him through three pints – two bought with her husband’s money – an extraordinary length to endure such a dull man. Giggled at his jokes, smiled at remarks and diverted inquiries about her people and yes, that’d be great altogether when he suggested he’d go upstairs to fetch the half dozen mauve cards he intended to sell for the outrageous price of three Euro. She prided herself on telling him he could have the whole three Euro and not at all she would never take a discount. And no, there was no need to bring them down; she’d go up to collect them.

  This was her move, all hers. Now she owned it.

  His eyes noted this sprightly gesture. Awkwardly noted it, mouth slackened a bit, brain too, surprise no doubt. He lost his balance when he pushed back the chair as she watched him calculate her intended boldness and blurted out how was she for Mass Cards, he’d lovely harvest sympathy ones, apples and a cart, pack of six, he could do her a deal a bunch for 20 Euros. Wait now ’til we see, he said.

  Upstairs, offered he did, a cup of tea, from his travel kettle. I’ve only the one cup, but I’ll give ye a bag of your own – otherwise we’d have to share, him chuckling at his own gargle. Her, in order to prevent him launching into yet another chapter of his life story and who did she and didn’t she know from bally-below, moved and sat on the soft single bed, noting the dustbin, beside the tacky side table had been decorated with a glued piece of white lace. On the opposite wall, there hung a picture of the Pope, arms out, his thumb extended. For some inexplicable reason he reminded her of a stout legged rugby player, egging her on, saying come on now and don’t be letting your team (the lads) down. Don’t be weak said his upturned palms, it may not be palatable, but what do you think your husband has been at? He was hardly trimming that woman’s toenails now was he?

  Card Man meandered on and on with snippets and jingles from life on the road until the kettle needed tipping and he paused to unplug and lift it. I’m very tired, she said in the middle of an anecdote about how badly repaired the roads were at some obscure roundabout in Cork, but if you’ve something specific in mind you’d like to ask me, please do, for I have a feeling I know what it is. But no, the silly man hopped backwards and threw his hands up at her in all politeness. No, nothing, not at all. Except did she take sugar?

  She counted thirty seconds of his faffing and then undid her neat cardigan in a practical and deliberate manner, opened her blouse, removed it and laid it out, so it would not sustain wrinkles. Only her thermal vest remained, but since he was clearly thick, she left nowt to suggestion raised it over her head and tossed it on the floor in a move redolent of saucy ballroom dancing. An obvious flounce. She lay back on the bed and said nothing further. She considered that she must look very funny to him, a middle-aged woman in her tan tights and her triangular skirt, and her top-half naked, except for her Dunnes Store bra and the holy medal hanging round her neck. He hopped and tripped his way over to her: smothering her with the nonsense she was a lovely woman, wasn’t she, instead of remaining, rightly silent. He commented on the remaining bits of clothes on her, that’s a good quality skirt, rather than the body she’d unwrapped. He then remarked, somewhat absently, he’d been thinking of going on a day trip to Wales. Had she ever been to Wales?

  No she had not been to Wales.

  She longed for the silly fella to shut up and the only thing that would shut him up was to put an obstacle near his mouth, so she stuck her hand up in a gesture to cover it, but like much of their conversation, he missed the plot, offering his hand to help rise her up. When she did not lift up, he rolled over her, nearly flattened her before apologizing and finally, praise God, put his hand on her belly.

  The skin along her thighs virtually peeled, in the clumsy struggle to unroll her tights. Once or twice she actively winced, but he appeared a bit deaf and simply added even more pressured determination to the task.

  Ought she to somehow involve herself? Yet her mind was concerned with the inappropriate angle of him for the task she needed to attempt. She should have obtained specific location of the postage stamp lick as described by Red the Twit, so she’d have some kind of ordnance to work from.

  She certainly understood her husband. If this encounter was anything to go by – at least this man had the manners to share his kettle – the encounter with the red-nailed twit must have been unpleasant indeed, for she was not about to believe that women were any smoother at this business than the butter fingered poking happening below her navel.

  She watched the radiator on the wall, as he tottered about, still muttering how beautiful she was for her age, which emerged stilted in his language, a monotonous drone had anyone ever told her she was a fine looking woman. It made her think of a crumpet, a stale one left in the packet and removed, inspected and remarked upon for having survived with no mould. She allowed the thought to pass, only to hear him yet again inquire whether it was ok, like ya know? And he wished to inform her lest there be any misunderstanding that he was not a married man.

  She could not understand these men at all. Her husband could not be trotting out these kinds of apologies, so she found it flabbergasting to imagine him making conversation, until she concluded that like her in these situations her husband said very, very little. They were entirely alike. Together in this situation they said nothing. Apart they said nothing.

  He, the card man, was not what the teenagers would call a ride. Frumpish and struggled with his belt, it was nearly sad to be troubling him. It would have been more appropriate to say a prayer with him, since he was clearly in need of an explanation, and had twice asked when did her husband die?

  —He didn’t, she replied. She restrained from adding she didn’t have one, they’d sold out of them at the shops. I’d be much obliged to you, was all she offered.

  Instead of obliging, he retreated into marital counselling. Marriage is full of ups and downs, he said, still struggling with his belt. I’d advise you t-go to Accord, it’s a great service through the church. Belt off. Very understanding people, so it is. A wiggle, trousers lowering. I’d go meself if I had those kinda problems
. I’m not a married man. Yet. Hah. He huffed and puffed on top of her and said you’re great, great, you’re a great girl the same affectionate way farmers talk to their cows – go on there and hup hup hup ya, hup there – and eventually as he moved about inside her, there was something heavy, flat and wedged about him. She tried to replace the two of them with her husband and the Red woman. It was not an enticing picture, for she could imagine the pallid state of her husband’s engorged stomach flopping about unsavorily against the younger woman’s tighter skin, yet she could also smell the reek of cigarettes off the woman, and knew her husband wouldn’t like that. Nothing worse than the sight of a woman and a cigarette he’d say. In a minute and a half, she gained some understanding as to what may have driven him to it: different people inside different places at different times. That was all it was. She had had a different man inside her at a different place and different time and now she was going home to put the potatoes on and think about it as they boiled.

  As the potatoes hopped in the pan, she thought about it. Small spuds that day, she’d reached the end of the bag. She still had a sticky patch on her stomach from the afternoon’s antics that she intended to scrub off, but watching the spuds boil she thought better of it. She would observe her husband come in from the fields and see whether he registered anything different about her despite the only evidence being hid beneath a tired looking jumper. It was the kind of thing after this many years of marriage that a couple should be able to track. If he figured it out, I will believe in God, she vowed. She definitely washed her hands. Five times. On the fourth time, she noticed the bathroom window was cracked. There was new information to tell her husband and she was very glad of it.

  There was a brief lapse in time between them when she settled into bed that night beside Himself. He stared at the ceiling as though his eyes are searching for a new planet to rest on, betraying an allergy to the current one.

  —I’ll be late tomorrow, he said blankly, I’m going to Swinford to look at a trailer, don’t wait on the dinner for me.

  —Will you be back before dark so?

  —I don’t think so.

  He had to have been back at Red. There it was. He was up her alright.

  She turned off the lamp and the electric blanket beneath them.

  He had noticed nothing because he was back up Red.

  Episode 7

  Himself started in on Jimmy. Small digs. Bigger digs.

  —How much was it costing to have that fella at college? And if he was to be calling down so often wouldn’t it be cheaper have him here at home, and put him to work about the place?

  It was an awful peculiar stance he adopted with the lad already two years into his course.

  —Wouldn’t it be better to have him useful about here? Wouldn’t it be better if he earned his own way to an education?

  Himself sat in the chair by the fire. Increasingly.

  Nightly he read the paper, remarked abstractedly that nothing was worth anything. Everything pointed to the fact that every young fella and girl had a degree and at one time it was worth something, but these days . . . Silence. You can see by it, when a man can’t get a fair price for his cattle, you know something has gone off. It’s not gone away off in isolation. Everything, everything is lost once a fella cannot sell his cow for a fair price.

  An unconscious look about him, like he was in another place, shouting back in the distance after cars that had run over him.

  Whatever was the cause of it, his father disliked Jimmy in a way he had not objected to him before. He was ungraceful in his attack. Our Woman can see that he has moved in on Jimmy because Jimmy did the very thing she made him promise he wouldn’t do.

  In turn she was no longer going to keep a cow for Jimmy. She dismissed the idea.

  I was shocked. Shocked for his father’s sake. I liked the fella. And then I didn’t like him. I want you to get a look at him. He was stringy looking. Tall, with a mop of curly hair. He was a quiet man. It wasn’t that I expected he’d bring a man waving pompoms. But this fella was way too up in his head and it was not what Joanie said about the gays. See, he asked very few questions, so he did. I wished he’d asked more. We couldn’t be sure at first why Jimmy brought him to us. That night my husband spoke to me in bed which was rare, usually he either reached for me or he didn’t. As he’d say himself, I don’t get into bed to get into a heated debate if I want that I’ll turn on the radio where’s there’s plenty people with nothing to do but talk all day.

  —Well, Himself said, There’s something fishy about that fella. He’s awful quiet.

  —Aye, I never usually said aye. We were both beside ourselves. He’s a quiet man.

  —Why has he bought him here?

  —Perhaps he thinks he’s a nice man. A nice man for us to meet. We don’t meet so many men.

  —I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all. I want him gone and I want no fuss made. You’ve to get rid of him.

  For a man who wanted no fuss, he’d a strange way of about going about it. At the breakfast table he stopped talking. To him the stringy one, and to all of us and when he left to go out down the field Jimmy raised his hands, palms up, at me inquiringly.

  —I don’t think he’s well. It was a pure lie, but the only way to get rid of the two men was to invoke a set of circumstances where no person would stay. He might have cancer. Maybe it is that he’s the cancer, I said. I had the idea to say it because in the church listings at the back of the newsletter prayers were offered for a man out Balla way who’d the cancer of the prostate. It might be in his prostate, I said. We don’t know yet.

  The two of them looked mighty uncomfortable.

  I’d mulled the whole thing over I was not telling a lie after-all I had no exact science on what was happening in this man or any man’s prostate and it could have been full of mercury for all I knew.

  Has he been to the doctor? That was Jimmy. Immediately skeptical, immediately practical Jimmy.

  —I don’t know, I said. Sure he never tells me anything.

  And good and timely the stringy but quiet, watery man said we’ll go. We don’t want to be a burden at a time like this.

  I coulda nearly thrown me arms around him.

  —If you could get the two o’clock train it might be as well. I said it politely, trying to hide my pleasure, but basically I wanted the whole thing sewn up before my husband came back for his lunch. I wanted them gone. I didn’t want to sit through another lunch. Sure you’ll be down again soon once this is all past. I said it the way mammies say such things. The verbal sweep of the hand, gentle feather duster smack to the back of the head.

  Jimmy knew it was all a lie. I could tell by him. He went for the two o-clock train but he didn’t go easy.

  Slipped into the bathroom, slipped him into the bathroom, the two of them, to get back at me, and if you could see the size of it, small enough to topple over with one man in it, never mind two. Two! And, the Lord save us, how I paced up and down the kitchen worrying if someone would come to the door, come in for tea and need to use the toilet and how would I explain the sight of the two of them coming out and the what on earth question in their eyes of‘who is yer man with Jimmy?’

  Twice I went to the bathroom door and once I spoke.

  —Are you in there Jimmy?

  —I am.

  —Will you be long?

  —Why?

  And I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t tell him the truth. For the love of God get that man and his watery smile and his leather jacket outta there or we’ll never hear the end of it.

  —I’m feeling a bit of an urgency. A bit of an urgency to go like ya know. I might have a spot of diarrhea coming on.

  It was ridiculous, but I had to get them out you understand?

  The other fella answered.

  —We’ll be about ten minutes, he shouted. And I found that awful bold of him. Sure in ten minutes if what I propose were actually true it’d be running down the hall. I was tempted to call into th
em don’t mind me I’ll just sit on a bucket, but I held back. They were going. That they would not come out of the bathroom was minor. I decided if anyone came to the backdoor before admitting them, I would say just to let you know the toilet facilities are out of order. I’d keep the door between the kitchen and the hall closed. I had my strategy.

  Finally, when the bathroom door opened, I strode after them to the back bedroom and asked to speak to Jimmy. Alone. They were stood, the pair, with 2 towels – my towels, I wouldn’t mind but I’d used the one around the other fella under my feet that morning and meant to hide it away on the rail – around their waists and the stringy fella had his arm on Jimmy’s back and I almost expired at the sight of it.

  —I need to talk to you Jimmy. I had to reclaim him from that hand.

  —Can you wait ’til I get dressed?

  —No I can’t. He followed me into my bedroom in his towel frustrated. What is it? Why are you acting like this?

  —Who is that man? Who is that man and why have you brought him here?

  —He’s my lover.

  Lover, oh the choice of it, that word of all the words he could have chosen to use on me.

  —Ssssh, I hissed as though the word alone would lift the roof of the place, would you sssh?

  —You asked me, Jimmy, lifting his arms up, cranky.

  —Why did you bring him Jimmy? Me, keeping my arms down, but raising my voice.

  —He wanted to see where I grew up is all. If you have to know, Jimmy, snapping at me like a ten-year-old who’d lost his toy.

  It all sounded ridiculous, so I quietened to have Jimmy retreat back to the room, a stream of water dropped down his back as he stomped away, and I heard the fella, whoever he was, muttering he’d go and Jimmy insisting not at all, if one goes we both go. And humphing out some slurry about his parents being backward and daft.