Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

  Slowly, slowly, now or you’ll frighten him.

  —We hear an awful lot of auld rubbish about your country, she told him, but I’ve never believed a word of it. A lie, necessary, she’d rarely thought about his country, let peace be fostered here. And he relented, offered the beam she’s hoped for, the grin that said welcome. Come on in. Enter, she thought. She was ready.

  By the time he rose, he expressed a strong hope he’d see her again. I am often here, she said. Sure you know where to find me. It’s light, polite and specific. Find me, it said.

  That evening, she scrutinizes her husband.

  Took a good long drink of him. She hasn’t examined him closely for years, his familiar features have blended into each other so much that all he amounts to now are a few ambling limbs and a bobbing head. Tonight she observes him closely. She will understand how his skin ticks. And into which dark corners his brain extends. She considers their lovemaking. Every few months or maybe longer, a hand, his hand, comes across her chest to collect her and tweak her nipple, sharply like he’s opening a valve. No longer than 10 minutes start to finish. She’s glad of it. She read in a magazine that once there’s none of it at all, a marriage is utterly sunk. Their marriage is not sunk so. She has always considered it quality.

  Too much participation from her, unsettles Himself. Say she grabs for him, he’ll readjust himself beyond her reach. It takes him a long time, half the minutes, to find his way in, there’s a degree of squishing below, against her thigh, for which she cannot identify a purpose, but once in – and sometimes he misses – he mooches about for a bit and just as she’s registered his arrival, it isn’t long before he’s gone. Slack, rolled off her. After he’s very silent, like his vocal chords have been sawn in half. Either he’s exhausted from it or this man, her husband, cannot have undertaken the acts this woman, Red, insists he did.

  She tries to calculate how he’d sustain himself to perform the plethora of moves Red described and wonders would his back hold up? The maths does not tally. Yet, wait now, she recalls how surprising that her own triangular shape did not put the sales man off. The way she’d laid like the lid removed from the biscuit tin. How could that entice? They’re like dogs these fellas, they’d take a sniff of any old passing rump. Literally stick their noses square into it, she thinks. Angry. Betrayed. Squashed. Determined.

  She must succeed at, what this woman claims, her husband did.

  Are these only hints of my depravity? She thought further on the Syrian, wondering what she could get away with, as she swept the fireplace of a morning. Would he even oblige me? She imagines he wouldn’t talk rubbish like that blundering bog man. She cringes in memory of you’re great, you’re great. Syrian baker chatter would be better than have you been to Wales? Was it too audacious of her to consider such a young man might want to touch her, when all he’d wanted that day was to trace the valleys up and down a map. But what was he doing in that library on his lunch hour, why would he approach her, only that surrounded by a circle of hostility and suspicion, it’s oxygen he’s after.

  He could be lonely, looking for someone to have a chat to.

  And she’ll be certain she’s there when the urge may strike him.

  It could fail, fail utterly. Then it will fail. It will fail spectacularly and she longs that her husband might catch her in the midst of this Catherine Wheel of failure.

  This is Ballina.

  Our Woman is reporting to you from Ballina, where she is walking boldly into the PJ section of Penneys with one thing in mind. I want to find The Syrian, if he is to be found. I want to make it clear today I am officially looking for him. If I should die crossing the road, it should be known I was searching for him. I am deliberate in this action. I am not seeking revenge. I am absolute in what I seek. I seek The Syrian. I seek The Syrian for my own purposes. I seek The Syrian to give me an answer.

  It could be said Our Woman is attempting an overthrow on cartography. I will place Ballina and Syria on the same map. I will unite us West of the Tigris. West of Roscommon. A road map. We’ll come off a boreen onto a modern stretch of road and bump back onto the boreen at the end of it.

  A random Wednesday, around noon, she returns to the library on the expectation that lunch breaks for security guards could extend all the way ’til two o’clock. She sits with a horse book, and scans it. Then worried he may not recognize her unless she’s reading the Syria book. She places it on the table, but reads the horse book. Curiously today no one male or female approaches and it’s a lonely two hours reading a book that doesn’t interest her. It’s raining, of course it’s raining, and a steady gang of people enter the library to keep warm and shake off their drops. The woman at the desk smiles and leans over to take library cards and Our Woman wonders has this woman a happy life and wonders what’s in her fridge and whether the woman is wearing tights. Does any woman still wear stockings these days or have we all gone the way of the gusset?

  En route to the car, parked at LIDL and out of time, she had the brighter idea to walk through the shops with an eye on the rails and an eye for her man in a uniform. There’s only a few places he can work, since there’s but a few shops that would protect their giblets from thieving paws. That would be Dunnes, Penneys and Guineys.

  He was not in Dunnes. No sign of anything in Guineys except GAA shirts and a banner advertising a raffle for the local boys Gaelic team.

  The nightwear section, between an unfortunate lemon yellow set of slinky shorts and shirt with fuzzy trim was where she discovered him. He was happy. His face animated in recognition, first words, it’s you. They were barely into hello when his radio cackled.

  —Come on, come on. He signaled she should walk with him across the shop, past mens teeshirts, boys shoes, baby blankets. He continued to talk into the radio and she kept pace, while people passed, grabbed a peek that wondered whether he was arresting her.

  At the cash till, there was urgent discussion about whether a woman who left the changing room had or had not robbed a towel and a pack of six knickers. The knickers they’re prepared to let go, since if she has them on her they can’t be resold, but not the towel. The Syrian was trying to understand the colour of the towel but there was some misunderstanding in the pronunciation of the word peach. Petch he kept saying and peach the girl kept roaring at him. Peach, fucking peach, for Jesus sake.

  He took off to confront the towel robber, who feigned confusion at the doorway and handed it over apologizing.

  By the time Syria found her again, she was in the boys clothing section, attempting to give the impression she might have a grandchild to shop for, admiring football kits and wellington boots with frogs’ eyes on them.

  —Sorry. He pressed his two hands together in apology.

  —I thought I’d call in and say hello. She said brightly like it was entirely normal to track down security guards who don’t tell you where they work. How are you keeping?

  —Good, he says.

  —Have you been back to the library? he asked.

  The conversation continued about the library and was interrupted twice by the walkie talkie. Overhead page. The emphasis on the first syllable of his name. Halll im.

  —That’s me, he pointed to the ceiling. That’s me. I looked for you at the library, he adds. There’s another book I want to show you.

  She’s in quick, swift as he begins to step away.

  —You must call down to the house and visit. I’d like you to meet my husband.

  —Yes, he nodded, I want to come.

  Another overhead page, Halim to the front counter. He ducked a bit below the rail. Squatted to his knees, ripped a page from his notebook and wrote a mobile number on it. Send me a text. Don’t exit by the front door, go out the side or they’ll know I’ve been chatting. Chatting said chutting in his accent. All the way to the door she repeated chutting, chutting. I’ve been chutting.

  As they separate, he waves firmly at her. He possesses a face that could age him anywhere from late twenty to for
ty five. She hopes he’s closer to forty five. She considers that he’s gracious, soft and enthusiastic and on her return to the car she considers that he will not suspect what she has in mind for him. The windscreen greets her with a parking ticket. Worth it. Worth every penny. Each digit in that man’s mobile phone number has cost her husband several euro.

  It’s loud on the street, his phone breaking up. Is there a bus? She’ll come and grab him. I’ll pick you up in Foxford off the bus if you can get down this way. Sunday, Sunday is when he’ll come. Sunday, yes come Sunday. Her husband is going to Tubbercurry on Sunday to look at yet another trailer.

  —I want to show you the horses, she says.

  —You have horses?

  —Not yet. Not yet. But soon we will have a horse. My husband will be very interested to meet you, she assures him.

  —How’d she get a ticket at LIDL? Himself perplexed.

  Met a fella,

  knows a lot about horses,

  invited him Sunday, he’ll come, see whether one might fit.

  —I’m heading for Tubbercurry Sunday.

  —I’ll cancel him. I’ll tell him come another day so. You need to be here.

  —Not at all. Have him come and look sure. I won’t be home’til late on account of the drive.

  On account of the drive. Indeed not.

  His name is Halim and by the time he arrived he looked entirely different without the insignia on his shoulders and a walkie-talkie mounted to his ear. Younger unfortunately – for she hoped civilian clothes and a bus journey might age him. She wants youth, but youth is fearful in its stretch backwards. He stood at the bus stop in Foxford, not uncomfortable, but curious looking, like he’d never quite fit.

  —Do you like it here? Tea tray down. Handed him plate of pie.

  —I do.

  —Are you sure?

  —Irish people are very friendly, he said before a pause. But this is the first time I’ve visited someone apart from students in the college.

  —How long have you been here?

  —2 years. He bit the pie edge gently. Hesitant Halim, Our Woman thinks, while fussing over how he’d like his tea and do they drink tea in Syria? Lots of tea. Tea like this? Not quite like this, but tea. Every time she mentions his country, he lights up. Except she has to keep reminding herself the name of his country. A scrimper of a beard that cannot decide whether it should stay or go and a set of peaty brown eyes, overwhelmed by eyebrows. His eyes are brighter or bolder than those she is used to, so she cannot stare long at them because they stare back at her.

  Is he cold?

  No, he’s not.

  Is he sure? She can get him a blanket. She can add something to the fire.

  —Have they fires in Syria?

  Daft question. But since he loves to talk Syria he’s off transported by heat, fires and weather. She’s gone to get him a blanket. His plate moves to the side table. He reaches in his bag, he brought her something. A stack of books. One, she can keep, three she can borrow

  Borrow, she likes borrow. Come again, it says.

  —Here now, she hands him the blanket but moves instead to pat it around him, slips her hand beneath his legs in the process, along the side, moving to tuck him in firmly further up his thighs. He’s alarmed, just mild though.

  I must wonder while I extract myself why I have nothing but the desire to keep pressing my hands all along the sides of this stranger. I could carry on up his torso until I reached his ears!

  Who is this woman? And where has she come up with such bold ideas on an average Sunday, an average Sunday where Mass and refilling the milk jug and sugar bowl, lest there be an avalanche of visitors were previously the order of her day.

  That snicker of alarm on his face fades to a smile. Is that a knowing smile? Would she know a knowing smile. She couldn’t give a snap of her fingers whether it’s knowing or otherwise. She thinks of that cheeky twit swinging her leg over Himself and Our Woman left out in the cold, back here sweeping floors, lifting newspapers and making a bed for a man laid in another. Leave no misunderstanding to chance she thinks, and pats Halim firmly across his belly.

  —Are you all full in there?

  Her hand drops low enough to indent the top of his groin area. I am wondering what you’ve got in there, her eyes say.

  She had risen this morning and baked. Strange choices that should have alarmed her husband, but he downed his egg put on his boots and hat and took off through the back door allowing the unusual whiff of apple tart to exit into the wind. There’s a visitor coming today, but no reply, only he was agin goin to Tubbercurry to look for the box. A box has become The Box. He has looked at 15 different boxes in recent months.

  Too big, too small, too chipped, wrong paint, wheel wear, rust inclined, not wide enough, too wide.

  —I’d like you to meet him?

  —Is it the horse fella?

  Sort of True: She had met the Syrian when thinking about horses.

  Not Ascertained: The Syrian knows something about horses.

  Absolutely Untrue: The Syrian is a horse fella.

  —Is he coming with his wife?

  —He is.

  —Bring him down to the field and let him see which way the grass is. He left it there at that single instruction.

  She imagined showing Halim the grass and asking his opinion on whether it would suit a horse and that made her smile. This young fella, with a key to his locker, and a few textbooks from the RTC college.

  —I’d like you to meet him, she repeated. This will ensure he’ll never meet him. The I’d like you to sealing it.

  She checked which way her husband went at the front window. Wrong way for Tubbercurry that much is certain. Right way for Ballina.

  Plants a kiss in his groin between his hip and his pubic hair. Delicately. Lip meets skin then she realizes where her lips are – and what’s she doing here? Presses it decisively and removes it slowly, from that few-fingered-sized-space of hair-free flesh.

  Purposeful she is. They’d been thumbing through a book on some mythical valley and she’d begun to tire of it, and that image of Red and her bare behind propelled her into sudden action. The first stage a blur, somehow she ventured belt beneath, while he continued reading undeterred. Raised the book obligingly, while she parted his trousers to discover practical cotton underwear, disappointingly so identical to her husband’s she could easily mix them up in the wash. He obliged, lowered trousers.

  Orange light.

  On and found flesh.

  She won’t look up. Places her two hands into his thighs and parts his legs, same way she’d divide bread dough. There isn’t room for her two hands, so one above, one below, his testicles squashed saggy, his penis against her palm, she’s got him now, visibly harder, a good sign surely. Encouraged, she places her lips on the top of it, sneaks some dry kisses along, waiting for a protest of some description, none, ’til arriving near the tip, she pauses allows her mouth to fill with saliva before taking the tip in her mouth (as she had read in the book on Jimmy’s shelf). Above he whispers something in his language which she hopes is it’s my lucky day rather than whose old mouth am I in? She isn’t entirely sure what to do now it’s inside her mouth, but as planned, copies exactly what she saw the young fella do with Jimmy. The angle is very awkward, but she won’t give it up, she’ll do battle. Direction confuses her and there’s a bit of crashing. Up with her mouth, and down with her hand. Hand towards mouth and back. Repeatedly. It’s a bit tight and her jaw nags. She’s not sure how well its going, but his hand has extended under to establish her breast. It strikes her she has no idea what her husband of so many years would taste like.

  She remembered how the young fella speeded up on Jimmy, and how he worked with his entangled hands. She must shift her position, which she hasn’t planned for and then there’s the lack of access to do what the young fella did to the behind. She’s minus the squeezing. On her knees, she’s managing the front end ok, still not the most comfortable, she tries to shov
e her hands around the back of him, but he can’t quite fathom what she’s up to and sits firm. Out of space in this arrangement it’s all getting too sweaty. Her mouth is really having a divil of a time figuring out the angle and what is required. It tastes alright considering, there’s a nice smell of it, but it’s ever so uncomfortable on her jaw and his knees are crunching into her ribs painfully. Fifteen more, she’ll endure. She lifts her head to mutter something to this effect, when he blows wet, spreads all over her hand and further beyond onto the sleeve of her cardigan. Just like that. The smell takes over the immediate air like cleaning fluid. So fast. She’s pleased. That’s all there was to it. Dandy. That it ended will close any need for conversation as to why it started. She can tell you nothing about his body. Her concentration overloaded on execution. All of it took place under a psychological tarpaulin. As normal as lifting a jug or stoking the fire.

  All cleaned and rearranged and back sat beside him without a word of explanation on either side, his hand took up her bait, drifted over to her back and moved about in subtle, small motions depressed her flesh gently like he was trying to figure out – post astonishment – what exactly she was made of. Found its way to the spare roll or two around her lower back and delighted in it, lifting it lightly and squashing it playfully. And they stayed that way for the shortest while, neither saying anything, but he’s happyish. She can tell this without having to look closely at him. He took one of her hands in his two and kissed it. Such a gentlemanly gesture, in comparison to her who has been furrowing around in this young stranger’s groin like a cleaning woman who’d lost her brush in a bucket of water. Ridiculous it might be, but this is what Himself wanted, and she shall want it too, she scolded herself to stem her greater inclination which was to wail in shame and beat her chest for atonement. It wasn’t bad, she thought. I could get used to it.