Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

  She doesn’t care about physical collapse, nor cuts, she is stuck and she’s not going to be stuck any longer because Lord knows what they’ll do if they find her out here, in this condition, with a spoon up her sleeve. They’ll commit her, she’s sure.

  She attempts to thrash her body about a bit, to roll to her knees, but however she fell, something is stuck or gone out of joint. All she can feel is the flask wedged under her thigh and searing pain when she tries to put her arm down to push herself up. The pain is there, no matter what she does with her arm, so clearly it must be broke. She’s to go the other way, to get herself over the flask, more pain, it doesn’t look good. Dark and marshy where she’s fallen, if she can get flat on her back then she can inch her way down the hill she came up perhaps. But what of the boulders, the sharp stones? And there’s the wall she climbed over. The wall between herself and her house. The wall between her house and the common land and Limerick’s house. Should she call out? No. For she does not want any of them to come and find her.

  Of course it’s cold, it would be cold, it couldn’t be any thing other than cold, if you’re foolish enough to go out with your spoon and your flask and your plans afloat. There’s no foot traffic up here at night. The backs of the farms lead up and out to this common land and it’s a great way to access a place discreetly. They’ll only be coming up here to dump stuff. Would she be lucky, would this be a night some young hooligan might make a deposit and she could offer him ten euro if he were to lift her back to her feet, leave her down to the house and say nothing. 15 euro she thinks. A fella would take 15. He’d get a few cans, a young fella’d be happy with 15. She can think such giddying nonsense because she’s afraid. She’s afraid she’s gone too far now and what was she thinking, scooting back here like a nimble mountain goat looking for a munch. I told you discretion, discretion, she chastises herself.

  Beirut is slipping away from me, she thinks. Beirut, Beirut, can you hear me Beirut?

  Anois, anois, the Blue House with the gaping hole in it. The faded Blue House, her first step towards (Beirut) because she can see and hear Jimmy in there. No one’ll believe her, they’ll say she’s away on the wind, gone with the fairies and ruder besides. But he’s there, sometimes he’s there and sometimes he’s not and when he’s not she can feel the cold.

  —I’m interested in a house, I told Grief on a Friday.

  —In what way?

  —I want to move into it.

  —You want to move?

  —Not exactly. I want to move into it.

  —I don’t quite follow you now. Whose house is this?

  —It’s belonging to a fella gone to Limerick, years since anyone was in it.

  —And do you know this man?

  —No.

  Grief pauses and then gently explains how with a significant death our minds can become carried away with the urgency to do things – things she stresses that are unachievable and not in our best interests. Might this be one of those things?

  —Not at all, I said. This is very achievable. It has already been achieved.

  She marked a note on her notepad and I knew I was in trouble again.

  —He’s given his permission.

  —Well that’s great then.

  The conversation is back at me, out here, under the open sky. I believe Limerick intended to give his permission, he was just not certain how to give it. I would hazard a guess that between my asking and his verdict he’d very bad luck with the horses or a pipe in his house burst, something incidental to our situation. He was hostile, he was unhelpful and he did chase me away, but I believe he longed to have me living in his house. He and I knew it was the best arrangement for the three of us. You know the way fellas are sometimes, they don’t know what’s good for them. It’s why there are women on the planet. It’s why they make such a mess of things. Oh the way they make a mess. It’s unparalleled. I can’t think about it now out here, laying here like this in the muck, it’ll only depress me.

  Obviously I am still stuck out here in the dark and it’s not a great place for me to be and I am not a bit happy about it. Who’d be happy about being wedged in the muck when you’ve only stepped out to pursue your dreams? Honestly, find a man who is and I’ll shake his hand with this broken arm. I’ve just remembered the diabetes. I shouldn’t be out here with the diabetes I bet. That’ll be another reason they’ll squash me if they catch me. I think I am supposed to push the button with the diabetes. Did I push the button below in the house? If they come out with the ambulance I’ll be finished. Everyone’ll know and they’ll say sure she can’t cope. The ambulance came, did you hear? God love her, she can’t cope.

  If I hadn’t believed he wanted me in his house I never would have gone. I am not a simple woman. I understand complexity. If the man’s face had said no I woulda listened. I took the bus to find him. His face didn’t say no. It said I dun know now.

  Why had she gone to Limerick at all, why was she there asking permission about a house the teenagers just delved into? What is wrong with the aged the way they think and complicate every small thing?

  Jimmy and his teenage friends went into the faded Blue House with the gaping hole in it. She remembered how they paid her no heed, and made their own of it, claiming it was comfortable enough. Was that what drew her to it? The knowledge it had been a place her son was comfortable, and when she reflected on their home and those last months – the same could not be said of it.

  —But what is it you’re doing in there? She would ask Jimmy.

  —Ah nothing to speak off. Just hanging about.

  Nothing to speak of. A leg. Another leg. A lip. A hip. Another’s hip. From what she’d seen the day back the field, there was plenty to say of it. Perhaps they do not speak when they’re doing it, perhaps that’s what Jimmy meant. Wouldn’t it hurt tho? she wondered. Maybe that’s why they didn’t speak when they did it. In case they’d let out a yelp of pain and upset each other. What if one or the other were not enjoying it? Would he call out?

  Anois, anois, out here tonight in this mud she cannot find the exact story of how she came to know the Blue House. Just as she cannot find the precise blue, it used to be.

  Well that wasted a bit time out here, the remembering is great, but the cold is at me, maybe it’s time to call out, even timid. I’ve accepted I’ll be out here the whole night ’til someone figures I’m missing. I’ve begun thinking about rabbits, they’re out here in it too and somehow they live. Oh Jesus now I’m thinking of rats. I hate rats. Are there rats up here? There probably are. And foxes. I don’t mind foxes. But I don’t like the idea a rat might run across my hair. Now I am really sick worrying. I’ll look at the sky to stop thinking about the rats.

  And so here she is exactly from that thought, her big plan in ruins. Would you credit it? Perhaps there’s no getting around these fellas and their permissions. If she comes out of this alive without hypothermia she will:1. Empty the hoover bag.

  2. Open a can of sweetcorn.

  3. Light a candle.

  The vow is made. She can feel how wet her hair is, how the base of her neck, her collar, all of it has absorbed every drop from the soil underneath it. It’s starting to itch and she’s shivering.

  The stars are lovely in this part of the world.

  There is nothing else to say about the sky.

  I have run out on that one very quickly.

  I don’t know why people talk about the sky and trees in books. I find very little to say about them myself. It’s a bit like talking about the wallpaper. They’re there. You don’t need to remind me.

  To lessen the despair of being stuck out here among the soggy bog cotton it helps to remember her route over: the broom in the car may have looked suspicious, so dustpan and brush suffice. She does not want to catch the eye of anyone going over to that house. She does not want to give way to questions. She gathers only the critical, the essential, the necessary. Tho’ she’s long lost her religious belief, tradition hangs onto her by a slight hit
ch, so a statue and a small square bottle of unopened holy water go into the bag. Superstition: she’s not afraid of him who owns the house; she’s a feared of those who might be passing. Gurriers tempted to vandalize or the thoughts of a person driving by. Their impulses. They worry her. Someone might choose to batter another, flat like a mole for a few bob. They could choose her because she happened to be there.

  The house rests two fields over, she’ll have several routes to access it. She cannot park the car nearby in case the girls see it. She has to be ever so careful with the girls, if they cop onto her, there will be an almighty row. A widow rummaging about in the dark in another man’s house. Imagine! You’d never hear the end of it. She goes on foot and is limited by what she can carry. There’s one route, the better route that she cannot take because that’s the route she saw Jimmy at Patsy’s boy, way the ways back. It helps to think of Beirut and the things he said to me. Did I ever tell you how I met him? Wait now ’til I remember.

  Balloons at the end of the bed. But they were not his balloons they musta been the previous patient’s balloons. Beirut was Helium before he became Beirut. I remember the day he arrived in the ward, the nurse apologizing that the strings on the balloons were tight but with the scissors she’d have them off in a minute. And him pleading that she not take them. She put the scissors through one a them and he let a bellow out of him like a hungry bullock and to calm him the nurse promised she’d let the other alone.

  He mustn’t a noticed me there watching and hearing for he continued to maintain it was his balloon that his daughter had given to him. I nodded along with him, the way you do, drifting from sleep to Quality Street to injection as you do in these wards, waiting for visiting hours to come around and see who would come into you and hoping someone might and hoping all of them wouldn’t come near me at exactly the same time. If you see what I mean. If it’s not possible to be in two places at the same time, I have discovered it utterly possible to be in two separate minds at the same time. Come here and go away minds.

  Helium started to talk to me and I was delighted. He called across details of his life. A daughter, the daughter who gave him this balloon he pointed to, is married with children living up in Ballyvary. Ballyvary, Ballavary, he never seems to stop saying the word. Up there, he calls it. Over there. Bela, Belavary. Were you ever in Belavary?

  I wasn’t, Our Woman says.

  —Were you ever in Beirut? he asked her.

  —Were you ever in Beirut? she asked him back.

  —It’s funny you should say it, he replied. I went to a wedding in Beirut and you’re the only person ever asked me about it. He uses the word funny 13 times in relation to Beirut. Funny place it is, funny people they are, funny food it is too and very hot. He got a terrible sunburn in Beirut. His brother died of skin cancer, but the brother was never in Beirut. I was the only one who went to the wedding. I was the only one who got a sunburn.

  —And who was it married who? She wants to know. There’s a boreen of explanation. A second cousin married some fella in the UN peacekeepers and the only time off he could manage was enough time to get married there in Beirut.

  She can’t believe it.

  —I was the only one who went. My wife, God Rest Her, was terrified of flying. It was only me and it was a funny place.

  —My son, she told him, is in the army too.

  —Is he married?

  —No, he’s not.

  —My son is in the army, she repeated.

  But Helium is only interested in marriage.

  —I’ve four daughters married now, he continued, and every one I’ve gone to the wedding. There’s many of them not getting married these days, he said. I am lucky with my own.

  —I’ve hope for my girls, but my son won’t get married, she admitted.

  The nurse arrived to check her vitals and passed over to the Helium man’s bed whispering something to him. He doesn’t mention his children again. They’ve told him, they’ve told him, she thought.

  —My son, she called over, confident it will annoy the nurses, was a homosexual. They’re not the marrying sorts.

  —Is that right? he responded politely and wondered whether she thought the weather would hold. It’s hard when your children aren’t the marrying sort, he added. Very hard on the woman, so it is.

  —Oh it is, she agreed.

  From then on he was Beirut. Beirut the only person who understood her in here.

  They sneak conversations across the ward all day long. Usually when the nurses have gone out of the room. This causes friction with another fella on the same side of the ward as Beirut.

  —D’ya know the women of Beirut take great care of themselves. They wear beautiful shoes. We went out in the street after the wedding. I saw eight shoes that weekend, eight shoes that were sprayed the colour of gold, feet like bullions, the women. I’d never seen a pair of gold shoes before I went to Beirut. I tell ya now, you don’t see them in Ireland. Here they are all stuck in boots, old coats on them and their hair blown sideward by the wind. There’s no wind in Beirut, women don’t have to contend with the same physical defeats the Irish do.

  —But what about the scarves? The scarves? The women wear scarves all over them, I said.

  —Oh, the scarves, the religious ones is it? No, no not in Beirut, I didn’t see many scarves, them is only on the telly.

  —The scarves are to keep the hair out of your eyes when you’re working, I reproached him. You have to keep the wind back or you’d look a terrible state and you might run into someone you know on the road and you mightn’t want to be looking that way.

  —That’s right, they wear the scarves to keep their hair clean in Beirut, they’re very sensible, they don’t want the dust getting at it, Beirut said back to me.

  I was distracted by the man beside him, who was listening over. He indicates his forehead, taps it with his finger, three times. A bleedin’ nutter he’s telling me. He makes a curly motion. Round the bend with his gold shod women. Those indicators say.

  But Beirut, Beirut was not deterred by his fellow countryman’s opinion on him. And on he went.

  —There’s no place like it in the world. I should never have come back.

  The head tappin’ neighbour’s had enough. He’s in.

  —I thought you only went there for the weekend. How can you be attached after only a weekend? Spain’s lovely. Were you ever in Spain?

  They’re both off: the neighbour, he’s interrupting. She wants to hear more, more about the women who attend to themselves so well. Spain talks on about Spain and Beirut is off again on Beirut. Their voices compete over a woman opposite who the nurses are hoovering something out of with a suction machine behind a pulled curtain. They shout at each other over the noisy machine. Bread, bakery, pan loaf, Spain, weather, bread, pan loaf, bakery.

  —The bakeries! I never tasted bread like what I had there. I think Beirut’s the best bread in the world.

  —Ah here, hold on a minute. There’s no bread as good as our bread. A pan loaf. Nothing on earth defeats it. Spain rolls down the top sheet of the bed, like he’ll go to war over bread.

  Others pick up on the bread talk: batch or pan loaf or Pat The Baker. Wholewheat might be good for you but it gets stuck in the teeth of the quiet man down the end. It gets stuck in my teeth and it’s days to get it out. I can’t ate it any more. I haven’t the mouth for it, states another.

  But Beirut was adamant.

  —No, no. There’s no bread in this country only leather it is. I never got a pain in my stomach the whole time I was in Beirut. Beirut puts his fingers in his ears and raises his voice. Repeating I never got a pain in my stomach the whole time I was in Beirut. The women wear golden shoes. I never got a pain . . .

  —Tell me again about the hills. She pleads with Beirut. Are they all around you? She wants his attention back to her. And he’s off about the hills, painting the panorama, any panorama for she’ll take anything he gives her. The arc of any tale can cross this ward and be suck
ed in by her brain.

  Spain predicted a cup of tea was on the way. And Johnny, who was moved yesterday, Johnny is two rooms over, he told everyone. No one answers. One man is stuck on his teeth, Beirut and she are away in the hills. Spain rolls, pulls up the cover and sulks.

  —Youse are all nuts in here and I don’t know why I am on this ward. I’ve asked them to move me. I’m going to ask to be moved. I’m moving rooms out of here, away from ye all, he yells. No one hears Spain. Beirut’s voice rose.

  —Do ya know a strange thing about Beirut, the whole time I was there I never saw a single person moving house. Isn’t that strange? You’d expect it you know. They are always moving in Dublin I find. Nobody moves in Beirut. They sit still and look at the hills.

  The tea lady arrives, everyone is distracted by the number of sugars, the spoon stirs. Only she and Beirut do not take tea.

  —Did I ever tell you about the dogs in Beirut? He asks her.

  —No, she says, and I’d love to hear about them.

  Strangely he never carries on with the dogs. He never tells her anything further about the dogs.

  She requests. But he doesn’t answer.

  —Beirut, she hums out to him, can you hear me at all Beirut?

  —I can, he says, arra I can. I can hear you. But he never says any more than the dogs in Beirut aren’t like Irish dogs. Their legs are longer.

  —Why aren’t youse havin’ tea? Spain demands.

  Sometimes at night on the ward when she cannot sleep because Bina insists she is not to be given sleeping pills, she calls out to Beirut. Beirut, are you awake? Tell me more. Sometimes he answers her but usually the nurse comes and asks what’s wrong? What has her shouting? Beirut sleeps soundly because he doesn’t have Bina waving the hammer at them for him. They’re doping Beirut, she thinks. They’re trying to kill him. They want to shut him up. They want to shut us all up. They don’t want Beirut to tell me the things he’s come here to tell me.