Malarky

by Anakana Schofield

  It was the first time I was removed to Castlebar hospital in my husband’s lifetime.

  I had not planned on it. That’s all I can say about that. There was nothing the matter with me. My neighbour Hannah told me that afterwards. There was nothing the matter with you, we all knew it, we knew you weren’t mad. It was your husband’s fault. He put you in there. There was no need, no need at all. Do ya hear? There was not a thing wrong with you.

  If I had my time again I wouldn’t a done it to him. And I am out here again. Nothing learnt.

  I can still recall the drive. My husband tried to talk about the horse. It’s the horse, he said. You’ve spent too much time on it. Thinking about that horse has put you under too much stress, he said. You’ve lost your courage, he said. We’ll hear no more about that horse. All the way to Castlebar he didn’t speak a word to me and in my mind I ran the word horse and think and horse and thinking and horse and horse and horse, gently to reassure myself that it was a horse that did this to me.

  Do you know much about Castlebar? I’d say none of you do. You should know there’s a weekly newspaper. I realized it once they incarcerated me there, it’s the place they want the mad to congregate. In Castlebar they mop us all up.

  —It was the horse, I told them at the check in.

  —It was the horse, I told them the first time they brought me dinner.

  —I should not have considered the horse, I told them the first time they handed me the Happy Days pills.

  —If you’ll just co-operate, they replied, you’ll feel a great deal better.

  —Will I get pudding?

  —You’ll get pudding.

  —Could I have a copy of the Racing Post?

  My husband had to go and purchase me the paper, the nurse said.

  These were some of the new ways I misbehaved once it had been confirmed that I was an old woman. Pudding. The Racing Post. And the hiccups I was plagued with the hiccups.

  It wasn’t the horse gave me the hiccups that much I know.

  They didn’t keep me long in Castlebar, sure how could they. An isolated incident I told them. They were not satisfied with my explanation. Had I ever had this swing before? No, I said. But I’d never heard the words DIRTY OLD WOMAN before. Was I concerned about growing old? Not at all, why should I be? But what had prompted this swing? It’s ever so simple I said and I let the whole of it gush out of me. My son in a field. I stumbled at the last station of the cross. The spectator, who refused to oblige me, came back and rightly told me what he thought of me once I’d fallen.

  Er?

  Well it was like this I had to find another way up him, and I did everything I could to achieve it, and you see he enjoyed it,’til he thought about it and quite right of him he came back and told me exactly what he thought of it and me.

  Er?

  I took advantage of him while I was measuring the waist of his trousers to take them in. I put my hand down inside them.

  Er?

  Was I sorry? (Was that their question? Or was it how did I feel? I chose to answer the first.)

  Not a bit, I said, should I be?

  I figured if I told them this, as a sheep stands on four legs I would never see the daylight again. Only be camped in here eternally opposite Beirut and eventually we would get back to discussing the dogs.

  It did not work. The talk continued of discharging me. The more I told them the healthier they found me. I was only confused they assured me and it would pass.

  After that morning conversation I’d have to do better. They wanted me to be upset about getting old. I must be upset about getting old, I intoned a few times. Then mebbe they’d keep me. Was Beirut upset about getting old? He seemed young to be upset about such a thing, but I thought it’s never too early to be getting upset.

  I decided to upset them by telling them more on the thing I longed to do to Halim that he wouldn’t let me.

  They weren’t a bit bothered by it. Only wrote it into the envelope and asked how I had planned to do it. I just lifted my fingers at them and gave them the signal. In and up.

  —Did he let you?

  —Eventually he did, I said. I caught him unawares.

  —Did he enjoy it?

  —I’d say he did. Very much.

  —Did you enjoy it?

  —I found it peculiar. It was much harder than it looked watching it up the back field. I was surprised at how far up I had to go.

  —Would I do it again?

  —Oh God I would, indeed I would.

  All into the envelope. And not a bother on them.

  The second sign that I would be prone to misbehavior took place in the company of my husband fortunately. I say fortunately because had it taken place in the company of a different man he might not have been so sympathetic and might have delivered me into the Garda van. But my husband thought of the implications.

  Another gondola swing, the second one, that ultimately forced him to deliver me this time to Sligo hospital, overtook me in an unfortunate location. Not long after the first swing, like the good man he occasionally was, didn’t Himself say a drive out the country would do me the world of good and sure we’d go up to the museum. A place no one who lives in the country would tend to go unless there was someone home visiting and it was raining. It wasn’t raining.

  A tiny country museum, tucked back in the road that drifted into some kind of heritage land with sculptures. I can tell you nothing else about it. My husband insists to this day it was the sculptures that set me off but I can tell you, and I have my hand across my left breast as write this, I can tell you honestly, truthfully, I was thinking only of a set of golf clubs when I did it. A set of golf clubs that had knitted covers on their heads. Knitted by the fair hand of a woman I can’t name. That kind of knitting, you know an old ball of blue, a dash of pink, the remnants of wool.

  I do recall removing my boots, probably enticed by the knitted woollen heads on the clubs. I recall this because the ground was damp and squelchy through my brown tights. The rest of my garments my husband insists I removed, while he slipped to the toilet in the Visitors Centre. In removing my other clothes I do not know if the golf clubs came into it.

  —I left my wife and went to the toilet doctor, and I came back and found a streaker! This is the way my husband probably had to explain it to them. God love him as they regard him sympathetically with looks that insist how hard this is on him. Stop it! I say. This is the first time his life has ever been interesting – don’t you see?

  I do not remember being cold. This confuses me. How, if I had no clothes on me at all, do I not remember being cold? I wasn’t warm, I was lukewarm. It wasn’t a still day, the wind was up, no rain rightly, but not a smidgen of sun. That was the problem we shoulda been nowhere near that place unless it was raining. If it had been raining I instantly woulda known all was not well when my clothes came off. The absence of rain was what caused the trouble.

  —I didn’t notice.

  I told the nurse this, as she leant over me to take my blood pressure.

  —Isn’t it funny a woman wouldn’t notice all her clothes gone like that? She patted my arm and told me to take a rest. She called me Mrs, it’s charming the way nurses do that, they call you Mrs once you’re old. I told you it was occasionally a good thing to be old. The pat and the Mrs.

  But they left me into the bed of rest. The bed of rest is where they pinned me ’til I recalled why I didn’t feel cold, until I could tell them that I took my clobber off.

  —How long has she been this way? Is she herself lately? Any previous episode? All questions addressed to my husband. I wanted to tell them don’t ask him! Sure he won’t tell you anything! He wouldn’t even tell you if the wheel was loose on his trailer! Over here lads! Ask me! Come on! Over here! They don’t hear me though I hear him. He was generous, so he was.

  —No, doctor. She has never gone this way before. She’s a strong, sane woman. Lately though she’s been spending time talking to a man about a horse. We are thinkin
g of buying a horse and she’s been looking into it. No, the man is not a family friend. A business man. A foreigner, a young fella, a Syrian he thinks.

  There! Whamble! He has it! A Syrian has done this to her. A Syrian has driven out of her mind. Them foreigners if we let them near our old ladies, sure the wards start filling up is what my husband is trying to tell them.

  But wait now the doctor isn’t interested in the Syrian: he’s asked for details of my daily life do I work, do I go up and down, do I seem happy?

  The only thing that my husband has noticed is I have stopped eating eggs in recent months. And he found it peculiar.

  An egg! An egg! Surely to God an egg would fix the woman! An egg would heal this mad equine concerned woman!

  Honestly, like a choir in my head and them all looking at each other and not me and me singing out the answers. Not the egg, not the Syrian, not the weather.

  I continued to hear my husband.

  —Do I cry often? The doctor asked.

  —Never, I tell ya Doctor, she is a strong and stable woman. Strong as an ox. She can lift heavier things than meself. It’s only since she began talking with that horse fella she went funny.

  —Do I cry ever? the Dr asked. Himself nodded. At funerals and once when she could not turn on the bathroom tap.

  The doctor wanted very much to know about the bathroom tap. My husband obliged.

  —It was a difficult tap, doctor, as God is my judge I coulda cried over it myself some days. I should have repaired it. It was a brute of a tap and I was busy looking for a trailer for the tractor or the car to pull the horse we’d eventually pick up once she had talked to the horse fella, but she never seemed to be finished talking to the horse fella and I’d a lot of trouble getting the right trailer.

  The doctor very much wanted to know about the trailer.

  —How many trailers had my husband looked at? How many hours a week was he hunting for trailers?

  —17 trailers. Not many hours.

  How many hours was the patient talking to the Horse Man?

  —Not many hours.

  But he met all kinds of people looking for the trailer and would you believe in spite of it he never could find a satisfactory trailer. I believe there may not be a satisfactory trailer to be found the length and breadth of this country by God.

  Finally there was a pause between them.

  My husband filled it.

  —The only strange thing I will say about my wife is her feet are always cold. I’ve never known a woman with feet as cold as hers. All the blood, jsust goes out of them and they’re white, pure white and a bit blue even.

  The doctor would like to examine the patient alone in the room without the husband present.

  I heard my husband, unhappy about this, inquire in what way would this doctor intend to examine his wife, but since the room was spinning, apparently, I ordered him loudly from the room in what was detailed in a report as an aggressive manner including the threat I would put the chair on top of his bullocky head. The deliberate peppering of my language with farming terms was noted as an act of verbal aggression by the student psychiatrist who, later, announced at a group meeting she felt there was tension on the farm.

  All of it went into another envelope.

  Episode 18

  Her eldest daughter Áine’s on the mobile pacing up and down by the window. Spain is staring at her and Our Woman hates him. He’s been filling the ward full of nonsense ever since she went to take a shower. Three days in here, she had to take one. She can tell he was makin’ up nonsense. Now they’re all lookin at her.

  —You’re the worst, she shouts at Spain. You making everyone in here depressed. I wish to God they’d discharge you.

  Her daughter holds the phone away from her ear.

  —Mam, stop. Stop would ya. Leave him alone.

  —You should kill yourself! she shouts at Spain even louder. I’d hand you the rope! I’d pass you the gun!

  She wants to go to isolation.

  She’s determined.

  To get away from Spain.

  To be beside Beirut.

  Beirut is probably still in isolation. She wonders if he’ll mind her broken arm and sprained ankle. How long is it since she was here again? She is confused. How’d she break the arm if she’s been in here?

  Áine’s questions arrive like blood sausage on plates for hungry men. Where’s she been? Everyone looking for her. Where’s she been?

  —I was locked in the toilet. I was locked in the toilet and I must have hit my head. She lies tall and proud and left and right and the nurse dare not disagree with her.

  —Did she call out? Did she not see the red string? The red string in every toilet to help every woman who falls and knocks her head, did she see it? We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Even the security guards are on alert. You’re causing us trouble, Áine says, as if she works at the hospital.

  —I need a little sleep. It’s time for a bit of rest.

  On cue, on target the nurse offers something to help her fall asleep.

  —I’d be very grateful, Our Woman smiles at her. It’s been a busy day.

  They are charting her when she wakes: Áine is gone, but her coat remains. Áine must be talking to the doctors, which is great she’ll insist everything they suggest is a fabrication. Áine will want her to stay here and stay here she will.

  Episode 19

  I had not long put my husband beneath the ground and the first thing I thought to do after handing that holy water baton back to the priest and watching the soil go in on top of him, the first and only thing I could think of was filling up the fields and providing for Jimmy. I had to raise a few cattle, on account of what had happened that day in the car. The day my husband drove the car, deliberately in second gear only to annoy me for he knew I had no patience for second.

  If only it had been someone more significant than a third cousin we were burying. The public nature of it never agreed with me. It is not the way to be taken, at least Himself was dressed in a suit, begrudgingly, because we had left for the church in some disagreement over Jimmy, who remained behind, still sleeping inside in his room. Himself, unhappy, determined Jimmy should be up insisted I go in and wake him. But I said let him sleep he was out with his few friends and celebrating that he was home on leave and them all hearing his story of his new life in fatigues and what harm, let the boy rest within. We were late leaving for the funeral on account of me struggling to fasten my husband’s tie. He was a broad man my husband, you have to understand, and it made tying ties more work. It takes longer to tie a tie on a broad man. I’m going to be honest and admit we fought and bickered the whole way to the church – both of us. There were good reasons but this was the first time in as many years that we bickered along such a lengthy stretch of road. Hedge after hedge, barb after barb he came back at me over Jimmy. That I had him spoiled. That he was a soft boy. Him and his fellas. I didn’t like the word soft and fellas. He was driving at something. He was hitting on what had happened when Jimmy brought that watery fella to stay the weekend with us, but I thought we’d were long beyond it since he would be in a war zone very soon. I don’t know why I kept coming back at him, pleading, yet not giving up, feeding him more to flare his fire, our last ride should have been quiet, calmed, it should have been a ride I would fill in the details after and what might have been said rather than being deafened now by what was actually said. We did not have time to have that fight. My husband only had just over an hour left.

  Himself had begun his day saying it wasn’t necessary for him to attend this funeral of a third cousin of mine he’d never met and I could as easy go alone. But no I insisted he, as my husband, must accompany me, that people might think him ill if absent and that stung him. He never liked to be considered incapacitated. If I hadn’t heard the death announcement on the radio the cousin would have passed on without us. Occasionally you get to know a cousin in their death without having much knowledge of them in life and I was feeling terrible
on account of it.

  I still remember the old Red Cortina we drove to it in and the funny plastic damp smell we could never get shut of round the gear lever, and how we speculated for years on what had been spilled there. In the car he was humping angry at leaving Jimmy behind in the bed. If, he reasoned aloud, he should have to go, then the same should follow for the Buck, which gave rise to a rain of criticisms on the Buck. What was he at with his life anyway? I defended him he had gone to college in Dublin hadn’t he? He didn’t want to hear it, wasn’t he only a waster, a loafer, wasn’t there work to be done here, never mind his galavanting off. And now I reminded him, sure he’s in the military for God’s sake – what more do you want? It’s the first useful thing he’s done, but he won’t last mark my words once they realize the type he is, they’ll kick him out and home to us he’ll be again. He won’t be able to keep that quiet. It’s written all over him. Abnormal and you know it. Then back again how I had him spoiled and he was never useful about the place only spent his day chatting like a woman at the table and getting nothing done, only under your feet and you get nothing done and . . . .

  I went at him. I went at him in a way I mebbe shouldn’t have given it was his last hour and he had the right to be right in it even were he wrong, as wrong as an outdated bus timetable, half removed from the stop.

  —Don’t be so smug, I said. Newly qualified doctors can be run over by buses, electricians can be injured on their first day there’s nothing assured for any of us. He’s a lovely decent lad.

  —You have made him useless and he’s soft every which way as a result. You’ve done it to him.