by Oliver Sands
So now Breeda sat halfway up the staircase, a towel wrapped around her damp hair, and a red-raw finger from where she’d yanked at the engagement ring. Around her, the central heating pipes murmured lowly and the house began to gently creak and tick. She closed her eyes and pretended the noise was her mother, pottering around, fit and nimble once more, making tea for two and a comforting plate of toast slathered in butter.
God, what would her mother be thinking of her now.
Breeda wiped her nose, then stood abruptly, abandoning the awkward thought on the stairs. She headed to the kitchen and stood in the yellow glow of the fridge door.
Wine. She needed wine.
She grabbed the full bottle of pinot gris from the door — something from a new range that Mister Sheridan had given her to sample — and poked around the jumble of contents in the shit drawer. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d needed a corkscrew. Digging one out from under the mezzaluna, she started to twist it into the bottle. She caught her reflection in the kitchen window, noticed the haggard face staring back at her, and found herself wondering how life had brought her to this point.
The corkscrew turned slowly in her hand and she felt her thoughts begin to drift, happy for them to pull focus from the mortification in Heeley’s and her shameful behavior down on the pier. And she found herself returning to Galway, a place she’d called home for ten years after college.
Galway had suited Breeda back then. She’d liked its busy bars and its annual arts festival, the curious tourists and the Corrib on its thunderous approach to the Atlantic. She’d enjoyed the bustle of living amongst it all in her twenties and early thirties. And she’d loved those rare Sunday afternoons when she’d escape to the desolate beauty of Connemara and wander alone along curving boreens on the prowl for wildflowers.
Her job at Digitron — managing mid-level I.T. projects — had been perfectly fine, never demanding overtime or requiring Breeda to lug her laptop home. She had kept her head down over the years, letting her more ambitious colleagues head off to Dublin, London and beyond to climb their ladders. Each evening, at the same time, she’d take the company bus home from the industrial estate to the city center, and when she’d climbed the stairs to the flat above the music shop on Middle Street, she’d always respond the same way to her flatmates when they’d asked her how her day had been.
Grand. Sure there’s no use complaining.
And there’d been plenty of flatmates in the ten years Breeda had lived above the shop. There’d been Padraic — the gym instructor from Mayo — who’d pissed like a horse at two in the morning and let the toilet seat clatter after too many pints. And there’d been Jenny — a nurse from Waterford — who’d screamed the house down in moments of passion, and who regularly clogged up the shower with long tangles of red hair. The Padraics and the Jennys came and went, but Breeda stayed on, her name on the lease. As the years passed, Breeda told herself it didn’t matter that each new tenant seemed younger than the one before. And she convinced herself that it was hilarious when she was mistaken by a flatmate’s visiting parents for being a visiting parent herself. She’d pretended not to mind that there was never any loo roll or teabags, butter or bin liners. Or that they couldn’t even refill the bloody ice trays in the freezer. She’d bite her tongue. It was grand. Sure there’s no use complaining!
The soup. It had been country vegetable soup. She could see it now, beads of oil forming on top as the bowl cooled on Breeda’s desk back in Digitron. She’d been sitting for twenty minutes in the solitude of her cubicle, staring at her soup as her mother’s sobering words from the phone had echoed in her ear - results from the hospital … not looking good …
Breeda had raced up the road from Galway to Carrickross that very same afternoon, had clasped Margaret’s hands at the kitchen table, and had witnessed the fear which her mother was failing to hide from her eyes. And as Breeda had cried herself to sleep that night, she’d known what needed to be done.
Within a week her desk at Digitron had been cleared out, and she’d farewelled her closest colleagues and her latest flatmates. Her belongings had fitted into a borrowed van for the move home, and as Breeda had pulled on the handbrake outside the house on Bayview Rise she’d felt a renewed sense of purpose settle over her. Her mother’s welfare would be Breeda’s new project: Margaret Looney would want for nothing until she took her final breath.
And now here she was, just two years later, standing at the kitchen sink and wondering what was next. Her poor mother was gone now, and Breeda was adrift, each passing day frittered away, a waste. Wasted. She looked at the opened wine bottle in her hand and felt her taste buds unfurl and moisten. To hell with tomorrow and the unfed cat and the bleary-eyed shuffle for painkillers. Breeda needed this. She deserved it, after the shambles of a day she’d just had. A few glasses to bring on sweet oblivion and quieten the constant criticisms in her wired brain. She reached for a wine glass, but her hand paused. There was a sudden sourness on her tongue, and she could guess what it was. Breeda glanced at her reflection again and had to drop her eyes. It was the familiar distaste for what she was about to do, but stronger than usual. She gripped the neck of the bottle and exhaled slowly. Perhaps the memories of Galway were shifting something, forcing her to concede that here she was again, numbing herself out and going nowhere fast. Same shit, different place. Sure, wasn’t she the queen of procrastination, adept at avoidance, happy to ‘make do’ and tell the world that everything was grand! She was suddenly sick of herself. Sick to her back teeth.
Breeda flipped the bottle before she could stop herself, turning her face as the expensive wine glugged down the plughole. She let the empty bottle roll in the sink and scanned the kitchen — her eyes wide — an urgent need for something to quell the tremble in her hands and the buzz in her brain. She needed something to give her even just a whiff of forward momentum. And just then she knew. She headed for the stairs — she would put if off no longer.
The bed was first. It was the easy place to start, and Breeda whipped off the flat and fitted sheets. She jostled the pillows out of their cases, shaking them roughly, working the restless twitch out of her arms. She balled the linens into a pile outside the bedroom door, then turned her attention to the queen-sized mattress. Her mother’s body had left subtle contours along the thin blue and white stripes running down its length. Breeda stopped for a moment and began to trace her fingers slowly down the ghostly furrows, her memory filling with images of Margaret’s pale and bony body, as it wasted by the day. But she caught herself – her mood beginning a downward shift – and she gripped the fabric handles on the side of the mattress. Yanking it towards herself, she struggled it up onto its side, and let it slam down again, a fresh side facing upward. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, then turned towards the chest of drawers. This felt good.
She worked hard for the next few hours, sorting and boxing, polishing and sweeping, until she turned to face her mother’s wardrobe which stood solemn but expectant like a man awaiting the firing squad. This was going to be the toughest thing to do – maybe that’s why she’d left it to last. This was where she’d need to focus and be ruthless; one pile for charity, one for the bin, only one or two mementos for herself. She creaked the door open and started to work through the mix of wooden and plastic hangers. Almost instantly her pace began to slow as the contents revealed themselves and snagged forgotten memories. Her fingers danced over frocks she hadn’t seen since her teenage years. She held swathes of silk and bunches of cotton to her face and inhaled deeply, allowing the subtle scent of Estee Lauder to take her back to evenings shelling peas at the kitchen table, or bringing Margaret an afternoon cuppa while she sat with her paintbrush, squinting across the bay. Breeda smiled at the memories, a welcome distraction from this evening’s gobshitery at the pub and the pier. She slid a few dresses off their hangers and folded them neatly into the bag destined for the charity clothing bin.
And then, behind a heavy black dress, she saw
it: her mother’s yellow coat from Portobello Market. Breeda quickly slid it off its wooden hanger and slipped into it, the lining cool and sheer against her bare arms. She did up the chunky brown buttons, cinched the belt, and stood regarding herself in the floor-length mirror. She laughed at the width of the lapels, and turned to the left and then the right, smiling at the state of herself, her pale blue towel still turbaned on her head, and looking at odds against the bright sunflower hue of the coat.
Breeda grabbed the framed photo from the dresser; the small black and white picture of the Cullen sisters in their heyday. It was the one of Margaret and Nora, thick as thieves, carefree and young, and with infinite possibilities stretching out ahead of them. It had been Nora who’d got a job in London one summer – ‘74 or ‘75 – as a temp in an insurance company. It was to be for a month or two at the most, better than being on the dole back in Ireland, and she had pleaded with Margaret to come over to the big smoke for a visit. And so here they were, in Soho, Margaret in her new coat – this very coat – looking every inch the movie star.
Breeda leaned closer into the picture and examined her mother’s face, creased with laughter on that sunny London afternoon. Hadn’t she met a young London Irish fella during that visit? Hadn’t she been wearing this very coat when they’d met? Breeda touched a fingertip to the glass in front of her mother’s face and stroked the wool of the jacket in her other hand. She imagined a radio frequency opening between them, faint and staticky, a stolen moment across the years. What would Breeda say to this young, happy woman in front of her? Would she tell her to watch out for a cocky young man named Mal Looney, and that she should turn on her heel, cos he wouldn’t live long enough to grow old with her? Of course she wouldn’t. They’d found love. And who was Breeda Looney to give advice anyway.
The sound of Sweeney’s cockerel from up the hill brought Breeda back to the present moment.
Shit.
The morning had crept up on her. It was not yet five, but the first ribbons of muddy grey dawn were raking the sky outside. If she left now she could get to the charity bins and be back before anyone was up and about. The thought of even one concerned face or sympathetic touch to the shoulder made her shudder. She’d give it a few days before fully venturing out in public with her brave face. Let them laugh at her behind her back, they’d get bored soon enough. But for now, she couldn’t face anyone.
With the innards of the wardrobe now empty, Breeda reached for the ancient cardboard hatbox which sat on top of it. She struggled everything down to the front door in one go and then quietly stuffed it all into the boot of her car. She’d be there and back within the hour. No problem. She closed the boot softly – not wanting to waken Finbarr – and sat into the driver’s seat. Taking a firm grip of the steering wheel she looked defiantly ahead.
Today was a new day. A fresh start. Everything was going to go Breeda Looney’s way.
She turned on the engine, nodded to no one in particular, and set off.
Chapter 8
The coast road was empty that morning. The tide was fully out, and the sea lay calm and flat, its shades of grey merging insipidly with an underwhelming horizon. Out in the distance a trawler gave up its diesel fumes to the sky, and Breeda flicked on her wipers as the first fat raindrops of the day met her windscreen.
In the hotel car park in the village there was a charity clothing bin, but she figured there might be someone about even at this time on a rainy Friday morning – some triathlete in training, or an insomniac dogwalker she’d know. It would simply be less risky to head the few miles up the road beyond Carrickross to the big supermarket car park on the way to Letterkenny.
The world turned over and continued to sleep as Breeda pressed on, her wipers screechy and juddery on the glass. The combination of yesterday evening’s drama and the sleepless night were beginning to catch up with her now, and she found her thoughts drifting. The last time she’d been on this road … she cast her mind back and shifted in her seat as the memory returned.
*****
It had been just over three months earlier, a few weeks after herself and Brian had got carried away one evening in the back of his car. She was late, and had needed a chemist, but there was no way she’d go to the one in Carrickross. So she’d closed the wine shop early one afternoon, and headed off on this very road towards Letterkenny. She hadn’t wanted anyone knowing her business, and she definitely hadn’t wanted Brian to know. Not yet. If she was pregnant she’d tell him. But the last thing she’d wanted was to make him feel trapped.
She’d visited a chemist – a large impersonal one where she’d kept her sunglasses on – and as Breeda had turned the car around in the direction of home she kept glancing at the white paper bag neatly sealed and virginal on the passenger seat beside her. The need to know had suddenly become too urgent, and she’d pulled off the country road into the nearest deserted lay-by. Squatting at the side of her car, with her knickers around her ankles, she had felt a surreal giddiness envelope her. Yearning for a baby one moment, and a millisecond later wishing for anything but a baby.
What would her mother say?
She’d held the plastic wand steady as she emptied her bladder, her spare hand gripping tightly to the inside of the open passenger door.
‘Do you have a flat?’
Breeda dropped the wand, and a spray of urine hit the back of her leg.
An old man in a tweed jacket was looking at her from the far side of the bonnet. Her face reddened.
‘I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.’ she blurted.
Standing quickly, she tugged her dress down, as discreetly as she could. ‘I thought I had a flat, but it’s fine. Really.’
‘I can take a look if you like…?’ He started to come around the car.
Breeda glanced down and saw the trickle of piss edging its way down the gradient towards the front of the car where the stranger stood.
‘No, really. False alarm.’
He seemed to consider this, regarding her curiously. But Breeda smiled at him and held his gaze, unable to close her door until he moved off. As he walked back to his Volkswagen, she grabbed the little white stick and got back in the car, giving him a friendly wave as she pulled back onto the coast road. A minute later she held the wand above the steering wheel and squinted at it in the afternoon sunlight. In that moment she had found herself blinking away silent tears, as she realised just how much she’d been fooling herself all along.
*****
But now back on the coast road as the early morning rain continued its steady fall, Breeda wiped away fresh tears. She found herself replaying yesterday’s humiliation and she thought of all the faces in Heeley’s, unable to meet the eye of broken and banjaxed Breeda Looney. She looked at herself in the rear-view mirror, her grey-green eyes damp and puffy and red with exhaustion.
Up ahead there was a bit more traffic on the road now. A large truck, moving too fast for such a narrow road, hurtled towards her, the driver high and protected and probably behind on a tight schedule. Breeda looked at her hands, her ring finger still raw at the knuckle. It wouldn’t take much. A quick tug on the steering wheel at the last moment – and exquisite obliteration.
But she couldn’t do it. Not to Aunt Nora. Not to Mr Sheridan. And definitely not to Oona. There’d be untold upset and recrimination. The truck rumbled past in a blur, inches from her wing mirror, and as Breeda rounded a bend she saw the blue and yellow supermarket sign, beckoning her and reminding her that she had things to do.
The only sign of life in the empty car park was the distant beeping of a reversing forklift moving palettes. The rain had momentarily eased off, and Breeda popped the boot and lugged out the black bags of clothes and the hat box.
She pulled open the metal flap on the top of the clothing bin, and peered into the blackness, questioning its worthiness to receive her mother’s garments. From the top of the first bag she carefully removed a cream cable-knit sweater, something Margaret had worn regularly for s
unset walks on the beach. As Breeda held it up to the opening she paused, aware that this was her last touch, her last chance to change her mind. She closed her eyes and opened her fingers, and it was swallowed, gone for good. She picked up another item and released it into the belly of the bin, easier this time, a goodbye by stealth. In the distance, the heavens flashed, and seconds later a low grumble echoed over the bleak car park. Breeda glanced at the sky, and then picked up the bag, and started shaking the jumble of clothes into the bin.
A couple of minutes later, as the rain arrived proper, she balled up the three empty bags and flung them back into the car. The ancient hatbox on the pavement was already peppered in dark splotches and its sodden mottled walls looked saddened at the chewing gum and fag butts on the kerb beside it. As she wondered for the first time if the hat inside it would fit through the slot, a cold fat raindrop found its way down Breeda’s neck, and she cursed herself for wearing her mother’s good coat - the wool would get ruined. She pulled the coat tighter around herself and flipped the lid off the box. Inside a pale blue pillbox hat sat cozy in a nest of tissue paper. It took a bit of persuading, but she managed to shuffle the hat in through the flap without too much crushing. She was getting properly wet now, the rain splashing her shins, the dampness working its way into her gym shoes. Her thoughts turned to her dry warm bed and she grabbed the empty hatbox from the pavement. She felt it stick, the slick tarmac not wanting to give up its new friend. The base gave way, the walls unable to retain their integrity, and she cursed and chucked the broken piece of wet flapping cardboard into the car.
In the remains of the broken box on the ground, a lone sheet of tissue paper was being drummed by raindrops onto the soggy base. Breeda glanced around but there was no-one about. Someone else could pick it up. She hopped back into the dry cocoon of the car, started the engine, and flicked on the heater. Job done.
