Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

  It was true I gave them a shock. I concede this much to Grief.

  —You gave them a shock, Grief informs me at my weekly appointment. If you are going to give them a shock then they’re going to be afraid for you.

  Was there any need to be afraid for me, she wants to know. Was I danger to myself?

  To be on the safe side she is going to have someone from the Health Board look in on me.

  Episode 12

  Bina worries they’ll send me to Ballinasloe. She tells me so. If they ship you to Ballinasloe you won’t come back.

  If they take you, she says, you need a witness here to record it. I won’t leave your side.

  She’s good that way Bina.

  His father took a few days to notice.

  —Is that fella gone? He asked indignant.

  —He is.

  —Well glory be to God, I thought he’d never go.

  I lay down in our bed and cried quietly for as I already told you I do not like to invite questions when I cry.

  His father had not asked where his son was gone.

  —Is he coming back? Himself requested when eventually I rejoined him in the kitchen.

  —He has gone to America to join the military. He only came home because he was waiting on his papers.

  —And how is it I wasn’t told?

  —You weren’t in the night he told me, and you were up and gone the morning he left.

  —He should never have come home at all.

  Words. Rolling pin to pastry.

  —He only came home because you forced him outta college.

  —I did nothing of the sort.

  Stubborn. A considered pause.

  —Isn’t it as well for him. He’s too soft. And soft as he is, it was you made him that way.

  A pause. I choose not to fill.

  —Now come again, where is it he’s gone and what has he joined? It could be the making of him!

  I could not tell whether I was sad because what Himself said was the truth, or whether I was sad because for all his ferocity Himself genuinely seemed taken with the idea of Jimmy in uniform. I could not say it was no good thing, for I would risk usurping that brief moment of approval.

  Instead I told myself that his father, above all of us, was the most ambitious for Jimmy. Himself believed Jimmy’d thrive with discipline. He was right that Jimmy would not thrive the way I had made him, if I could only tell you what that referred to.

  The only thing Joanie says she heard about anybody making anybody anything around the homosexuals like ya know is a program she saw on psychology where she said they said that a baby born with his nose up to the heavens rather than down to the floor may have a predilection to being a gay.

  I stare at her.

  —And what do you think?

  —I’ll tell you the truth it is the biggest load of auld rubbish I ever heard. How on earth would which way your nose pointed affect it? It’d be more likely to make you allergic to pollen.

  Then we go back to discussing the benefits of Manuka honey which Joanie says is mighty for every single thing, there isn’t a thing it won’t cure, but the price of it would lift the skin off the roof of your mouth. She pulls a tiny jar from the cupboard and we put it in our palms and stare at it.

  —11 Euro. She says.

  —11 Euro!

  —Lift your tongue, she says and stuck a spoon of it into my mouth.

  —There now, you’ll sleep better with that.

  I had three letters written and posted to Jimmy by the first Friday week. Just short notes. But I missed him, I missed him terrible. And I woke nights imagining him hurt and burning. Hurt and burning were always what I imagined.

  My husband will tell you it wasn’t long ’til I was taken strange. He’ll tell you it was on account of the boy’s absence I became strange. I’ll tell you different. My gang will tell you different. There was nothing the matter with that woman is what they’ll tell you.

  With Jimmy gone and my husband absent so much, it was easy to bring Halim to the house. I contacted him regularly for the bit of distraction because I enjoyed him. I encouraged him to come down and visit. I offered to wash his shirts. He was a great man for needing shirts washed. I seemed to be washing shirts that weren’t worn, but what about. I could tell you I initially contacted him for a bit of distraction from Jimmy’s abrupt departure, but actually my mind was full of other thoughts. I was not finished with him.

  Quickly Halim noticed how depressed I was and asked why I had been so quiet with him, was I angry with him?

  —My son was home and is gone and I am missin’ him awful, I said.

  —Yes, he said, I can see. You are very dark in the eyes. Your husband is a bad man, no.

  —No, my husband is an ordinary man, not bad, it is me who is slowly demented. The cattle prices are causing pressure on all the men around here. My husband more than most. It’s all he talks about.

  I took Halim on walks with me.

  We walked the routes I previously took with Jimmy. I said he was a nephew from England. I thought about the things I planned to do with him.

  One neighbour said he looked like a Pakistani and was he a Pakistani? I agreed he was. From England he is. A Pakistani from England is he, the neighbour repeated. He’s a very good man, I said. Oh they are, the neighbour speaking. They only marry their own. Were you ever in England? I wasn’t, no I was not, the neighbour said. I’ve a brother there but I never went meself. He broadened into how you’d have no peace from the cows if you took off too far beyond a day in Ballina. They’re always at you. Like children sucking at you. Chores to be done, they always need something from you. Like children they are, he repeated. No, I corrected him, children go away, cattle do not. We slaughter them, remember. Maybe he’d better carry on, he said. I believe it was that man who may have reported me strange or strained to my husband. It doesn’t do to correct a neighbour.

  Another neighbour, again a man, for the women come to the door to make their inquiries, or look at you queer an’ squint if you disturb them, passed us another time in his car. He rolled down the window and asked pointedly about Jimmy.

  —No that wasn’t him I was walking with, no, no that’s a relative from England.

  —I haven’t seen your lad about, he continued. What took him?

  —He joined the army, I said and the man’s face was jubilant within that car window. Isn’t he great, won’t he go far, he’ll do well out of it. I tell ya, I tell ya, I tell ya. I was surprised to see him home and knew he couldn’t be staying long and now I hear he’s gone to the army, well it all makes sense!

  He drove off with an air about him like he was off to make a cake or build a good fire to celebrate my lost son finding his way.

  That was the conversation that started the talk in the bank. The talk where they said Jimmy had gone because he wanted to get away from me. That he went to get away from me. They never mention his father only me. It is only me he went to get away from. Do you hear that? They are joyous he finally escaped me.

  I walked home with a short stride and long heart, my tongue so heavy in my mouth I could barely keep from biting it between my teeth. Nobody knows my son. Nobody but me. He will not go far, he will not do well out of it. He’ll come home in a box out of it.

  That was the night I was taken strange, my husband later told them. He said I’d come in from outside that day with a confused – confused being the polite local term for possessed – air about me. She didn’t look right was all he’d say when the doctors asked him. The Lord save us she was confused, others would say, which is the polite local way of saying she was raving out of her mind.

  My husband had it all wrong.

  The others have it all wrong.

  I wasn’t taken strange over Jimmy at all. It wasn’t ’til weeks later that I was officially taken strange and it was on account of Halim, not Jimmy.

  It might be true that the night before that Sunday Halim visited I was feeling a very small bit demented. I went thro
ugh the catalogue of events, the things that bothered me so much about what my son did and the things I have seen. I revisited every one of them that morning but was struck with a curiosity that had never poked me before. The duplicate bodies didn’t seem so savage and I wanted closer in on them, to examine them more carefully. I wanted to recall those arms and those legs and those lips on those nips. I became frustrated when I couldn’t recall it precisely, for previous I never could shut it out of my mind. Now it was sliding from me. Jimmy’s absence taking all of it, more than I wanted gone. No sooner is something gone than we must know more of it. Why’s that? I often felt this same way when a cow leaves to the factory. I’ve no interest in the animal, but once missing, a hole forms for her. I look for her. I miss her in a whole new way.

  Things were slipping from us: Me and Halim. Whatever we came together to do had an inevitability and we shoulda just got on with it – left the talking, the walking, the thinking alone. Instead we slipped into too much chat and comfort and that was an awful bad idea. Things can get sloppy around the teapot. I see that was the trouble in it all. I confused the objective. I blame myself. Was he, in the end, too nice a man for what I had in mind for him? For Halim too was beginning to burden me.

  During one visit where I ironed a pair of trousers for him, Halim asked again why was I so saddened. Where was my son?

  —My son came home I said slowly, for a reason we didn’t understand and now he is gone for another reason we don’t understand.

  —Leave him alone and he’ll tell you eventually, Halim said.

  I didn’t like it.

  I didn’t like it one bit.

  Here was another man presuming to know more about my son, than I, his mother did.

  I didn’t like it at all.

  I wouldn’t stand for it. He was stamping on my patch in a way he wasn’t welcome to tread.

  Halim came to my kitchen again, but we had to reacquaint ourselves. I could hardly recall how forward I had been to him and that afternoon I commenced polite and distant. I made no move to hug him on arrival but there were sexual things I longed to do with him the moment he sat down. I’ve never been clearer in my life about what I wanted to do with someone. There were two items on my list, but I remained female and farmish, indecisive how I was to make the ascent. He did not seem disappointed. He had two shirts for me to iron.

  —I see you found the locker key? I laughed. So much trouble at work, he said. One woman in particular was gunning for him.

  —Why do women do this? he asked. I am from a good family and they treat me so bad there.

  He watched me while I iron. He watched me closely. Every time I moved past him his eyes were on my hips. I wanted to put my hand under his chin and tip his eyes to my eyes. Up here Mister. But his gaze remains fixated on my pelvis.

  It occurred to me this could be useful.

  In turn I lowered my gaze to his pelvis. The back not the front, which meant a bit of craning my neck. I had begun to do some thinking.

  He made only one gesture. As I am coming with the teapot, standing, he, sitting, grabs me about the waist and presses his cheek against my belly which I had already sucked in and hugs me strong wrapping his arms around me. He murmurs. I had the teapot uncomfortably above his head and my elbow was wobbling. I did not want to tell him to get off. One eye on the backdoor, I’m aware the things I want to do with him are not finished yet. He stayed like this long enough and strong enough to convince me this is the time to do them.

  It may not have been the time.

  If he hadn’t made that stomach gesture I doubt I would have proceeded. But he dared me and I was invincible in this state with him. I wasn’t in my ordinary life, I was in an extraordinary moment in my ordinary life. And he had presumed to know something of my son, which angered me, so much so that I must prove he knew nothing.

  —Come, I told him, once the pot met the table. I want you to see my son’s room. I watched the clock. I’d no idea when Himself might be back but I can’t risk his catching me. We were safe until the hour of hunger.

  And once in Jimmy’s room, I closed the door pert and swift. Laid me down on Jimmy’s bed positioning myself as the watery fella had, while Halim browsed items round the room. I reached my hand out and tugged him, he knelt beside the bed watching me. A pat of the mattress and up he hopped. I began to work on his nipple exactly the way Jimmy did with the watery fella and tried to remember what came next.

  Before I could recall the sequence, his hand slid up my leg and seemed to be examining the shape of my pelvis rather than vagina. He darted around my vagina messing about with his hands like an engineer. Measured his hand span across and down.

  —Will you let me do something? he asked. Tentative. I like tentative. Tentative means permission given is permission owed.

  Whatever he was so polite to request permission for, I had bolder plans for him.

  —Work away, I said.

  The problem with Jimmy being gone was not just that he was gone, and gone off somewhere dangerous, it was we’d so little information about what he was doing.

  Since men and women can faithfully never agree on what to worry about, I put this to my husband.

  —Aren’t you worried about him?

  —Not at all, sure it’s the first time that fella has been useful. I’m not a bit worried about him. I only worry about idlers, men who sit about thinking instead of getting on with it.

  He admitted he was proud of him.

  —I like the way he took us by surprise. I didn’t think he had it in him. I might even write and tell him, Himself said.

  I lay and thought and thought and lay and I could not see things the way my husband did and after this amount of marriage perhaps that should have surprised me, but it ceased surprising me many years ago. I paid close attention to the news and I began a system of recording the war casualties on the bottom of my table mat. I had the notion that using a process of subtraction I would be able tell if my son was killed. As far as we knew Jimmy was in a training camp in Pennsylvania or some place beginning with the name Camp. I was anxiously waiting on a letter from him. I stopped sleeping well at night, indeed I stopped sleeping at night. I would wake with the fear at me, that Jimmy was hurt and always so close to me physically, yet I couldn’t grab him. Men waving bayonets clustered themselves into my dreams and all I could see was men with their hands around each others throats and in their last minute frightened, regretful eyes that seemed to appeal with words like I’d rather be at home mowing the grass, it wasn’t what I expected and why am I here anyhow? In my dreams Jimmy was always fighting like World War I, muddy and in the trenches. Even though he was in Pennsylvania and in one of his seldom letters had described very modern equipment, bunk beds and plastic cutlery.

  Women in scarves with anxious eyes were looking at the camera. But those women had their arms crossed or they raised them up, like they were holding invisible hammers, in defiance. They might be crouched or backed against the garden wall, but I admired the way they kept their arms crossed. A kind of you have me, only you don’t have me. They reminded me of Bina: sometimes what she’s thinking is far more powerful than what she might be saying until she delivers it up to you. When I saw the soldiers rounding them up or putting them down to their knees with their arms behind their heads I couldn’t see my Jimmy doing that. I couldn’t see him binding hands with plastic ties. I couldn’t see him yelling get the fuck down. I couldn’t see him in any of it. I couldn’t imagine how he’d keep the goggles on his eyes nor the pack on his back. And I worried the size of the boots they wore would give him blisters. I wanted him home, I wanted him home without the boots, I wanted him home this instant.

  It’s a very dusty place Iraq.

  I bought the RTE Guide and carefully studied it for all or any television program about anything to do with the Middle East or the army or soldiers. I ordered a satellite dish unbeknownst to Himself, who when he almost tripped over it coming in the back door barked in alarm what in the nam
e of Jesus is that thing?

  —It’s a dish for the television.

  —What? What would we need this for?

  —We’re going to have to be watching the news in Kuwait now Jimmy is gone in the army. I told him in such a manner that suggested if he didn’t shut up I would bounce the bloody thing on his head.

  —He’s in Pennsylvania, he won’t be going anywhere for months. He’ll be home before he goes anyplace.

  —I don’t want to hear another word about it. You’ll put it up on the side of the house tomorrow.

  Grief seems upset with my question. Had I made my son into a homosexual? My husband says I turned Jimmy soft. Does soft mean homosexual? Is that what soft means?

  Grief, in voluntary capacity, assures me this is likely not what my husband means, but since my husband is dead we have no way to verify.

  —I did want him gone. Well I wanted it gone.

  —You did?

  —Yes.

  —But I also wanted it to stay.

  —How?

  —Everything that I saw I’ve longed to see again and again.

  —What do you mean by everything you saw?

  —I saw Jimmy at fellas and fellas at Jimmy.

  —How do you mean?

  —At each other literally.

  —In your house?

  —Yes.

  —That must have distressed you.

  —I thought it did, but now I see that I loved to see it because it showed my son was alive and I want it all to come back. Because in wanting it all to be gone, it meant all of it and I wanted Jimmy gone, maybe more than my husband. And once he was gone I wanted him back, so very badly, certainly more than my husband.