Bina

by Anakana Schofield

  The next I knew, she phoned.

  I washed your glass, she said

  It was sweating mad inside that bag.

  What are the gloves & the syringe for?

  Oh, nothing at all.

  They were just in the bag.

  Oh good, she said, I nearly threw them in the fire.

  They’re here, she said. Will I rinse the syringe?

  No, no I said. Leave it in the bag.

  What’s inside the Glass is for you, when you decide you need it, I said.

  I thought as much, she said. I put it in the breadbin. You’re very good.

  I’ll need the glass back, though, I said. I didn’t mean to leave it.

  I knew the Tall Man would take a Tall Man’s view on me forgetting the Glass. He had trained me the way you’d train a spy or a soldier. I enjoyed the training. It was like we were on a mission. He even took me out into the woods to practise. We didn’t go far. Down to the lake, parked, found a clump of trees and he said, follow me. He trained me out there in what he was calling safe operational and conscious tactics.*18 Be aware of your surroundings, he told me. Turn your head around you. He made me sit in an uncomfortable position squatting and watch a bird in the distance. He said it was very dangerous and that people could not ever be discovered or caught or find themselves set up doing what we were doing. We’ve to be very aware, he said. We’ve to be ahead. We’ve to imagine the worst because we are relieving the worst, and those who are requesting relief will be returned to the worst should we fail them. We don’t fail, he said. We cannot afford to. Unless they change their minds, which is fine. What then? You leave, he said. Oh right. Of course. He looked aggrieved, like I should have known the answer. I was new at it. I barely knew the questions.

  The Tall Man enunciated carefully. His language was the language of justification and defence. He was smart this way. He wouldn’t necessarily argue with you, because he wouldn’t need to. He explained to me his technique. He explained this was why he played so much Scrabble. Think about it, he said. Think about how words sit beside each other, think about how one word can blend and become another. Become aware of the shape of the words leaving your mouth. Be non-committal in all that you say. We are using the language of cover. We have to cover. We have to protect. We have to honour the wishes of our clients.

  I had no good clue what he was wittering on about, so I covered and nodded.

  I had a feeling that once I got out of this uncomfortable squat and staring at this bird who held no interest for me, I would then understand his take and his tone, and if I didn’t I would at least finally be back indoors in the warm. In the meantime, it was exciting to be away from Eddie for any purpose whatsoever. Except, in the meantime, I was out here cramped, chilly and with my eye on a bird.

  Can I stop looking now?

  No, he said. You must persist. These are the things you must learn to persist with.

  My hip hurt. I stood up and faced him.

  I am sorry but that’s all the persisting I have left in me today.

  We moved to the next stage of the Tall Man’s training. I am not suggesting I did not appreciate or enjoy aspects of it. I am not saying that the ramifications of it were not useful and informative. I am actually not saying anything either way. I am just telling you plain and simple. There was training and I was trained. I was warned during this training. And you might say—I am certain that the Tall Man, wherever he is, will very likely be saying—I failed his training. I didn’t heed the warnings. You might assume that all these words are an apology for not heeding those warnings. It might be, I am not sure. That is for you. I can only mark it here like mean cat scratches and you can let it be useful to you or not. It isn’t definitive and it isn’t certain. It is the very nature of warnings.

  I was struggling about how to get the Glass back and what to tell the Tall Man about the Glass and how I’d left it and I knew he would tell me write it in the book. But to write it in the book I had to drive 10 miles to and that man always asks me to have tea and sit down with him and I’ve to be honest now…I didn’t do it. I didn’t write the explanation into the book where we were supposed to write all the explanations. And either this was how I tripped us all up or it was a combination of this and the Mole reporting our activities to someone.

  What I did instead was I bought another glass. I went to Dunnes and I bought a glass that I thought had the look of the Glass. I put it inside a carrier bag and I planned to add a pair of latex gloves I’d lift from someone who had a box of them in their house. I was waiting to spy a box. I wasn’t going to buy a whole box of latex gloves when I only needed the one pair.

  I don’t recall too much more on the Glass.

  Because Phil wrote her explanation on the paper

  And because the Glass was there in the bag

  Along with the latex gloves

  I was scuppered.

  I might also have left something more inside the bag

  And it was technically the thing in there that they technically caught me for.

  And maybe it was deliberate that I put it in the bag.

  I didn’t tell her straight.

  I just said when she mentioned the Glass that I had another glass since, and that she’d find something inside the Glass in that bag. I said if it’s useful just say the word when you are ready and we will do what has to be done. Other than that, I don’t want any more talk about it.

  You’re a good woman Bina, she said. You were the only person who made any sense that time when they put me in the hospital after I lost Jimmy. I never forgot how good you were to me and I never will.

  Go way, I said. It was nothing, if I had been trapped in there you’d have done the same for me.

  What she did forget was to say no more about it.

  The hardest thing humans have to do is say no more about it.

  Phil was wrong.

  Even me, I cannot stop saying no more about this.

  And I won’t shut up.

  She chose to go.

  That’s one thing

  But she left explanations

  Accidental explanations.

  That wasn’t helpful

  That was wrong.

  She should not have gone

  Because she couldn’t go without explanations.

  Those left behind will want explanations.

  Should you not go until no explanations are needed?

  Or should the explanation-hungry get over themselves?

  Like myself.

  Should I give up on explanations?

  And have I?

  Do I?

  Will you?

  We’re not there yet.

  Are we?

  We’ll go to the grave hoping for explanations.

  We’ll look at the letterbox way beyond what the postal service could ever deliver. The letter or card the person never wrote.

  We look at it on Sundays, hoping for news.

  I am still looking at my letterbox

  But now I am watching the Tablet

  Hoping for word from/of Phil and worried that Eddie could come back.

  See how it is

  Those we want shut of, linger.

  Those who should remain, don’t.

  And even if you’re shut of those you want gone, they still linger

  And in the same way, those who do not remain more than linger

  They become even more than they were.

  Which was never their intention.

  It’s a funny old muddle

  And it’s why I can now only lie down.

  Only lie down in the stew of it

  Rather than be carrying on and rushing about trying to get past it all.

  It’ll never be passed.

  It’s how it is.

  You’ll never be shut of the troublemakers

  And you’ll never get past the loss of those you actually love

  And who are useful.

  Nothing to be done

 
The useless remain.

  Only lie here and wallow in the disaster that we create.

  The ones we work hard to create.

  And the ones we disastrously try to understand.

  Nothing to understand,

  Nothing to be understood.

  That’s a warning and a remarking

  Just as I promised.

  I am good this way

  I don’t make promises I won’t keep

  And I won’t shut up til I am ready

  And I may never be ready

  At this rate

  We’ll never reach the red dot

  But I’ll pop it here as a marker

  A reminder

  That it’s coming.

  I have begun to have my doubts.

  He never stalled.

  He was in and he was out.

  Or

  Bina began to have her doubts.

  He never stalled.

  The Tall Man was in and he was out.

  I still can’t decide how I am to tell you this

  (and I continually forget what I have told you).

  Eddie took things from my kitchen.

  I gradually noticed them gone.

  Strange things

  Surprising things he’d have no use for

  Wherever he is.

  Like my meat pounder

  And the bottle of salad cream.

  Eddie had started to say he had diabetes, to compete with Phil

  And so I wouldn’t kick him out.

  If you’ve diabetes, go to the doctor and get it checked, I told him

  I’m weeing all the time, he said

  You’re weeing all the time on account of the drink.

  No, it’s not the drink, he said

  The drink is nothing got to do with it

  It’s my accident, he said.

  His accident was the code word for

  Do not challenge me.

  But I wasn’t finished with him yet.

  I have a few questions about your accident, now that you bring it up, I said.

  And not long til I didn’t see him for the dust.

  I did have questions

  And they weren’t just about the accident.

  They were about other strange things in the locality that were worrying me and more besides me.

  Someone is robbing houses, I said. We are going to have to set up a neighbourhood watch. It will be easy to catch the person, I said, as they are a pure eejit and have no clue what they are doing.

  Travellers, he said

  It’s not Travellers, I said. Travellers aren’t this stupid if they are going after something.

  Whoever did this is as thick as a post. Only a matter of time til he’s caught.

  But we have a surprise planned for him.

  Might be a woman, he said

  I gave him a look

  That would wither him.

  The Crusties are very keen to make an emergency-evacuation plan for me. They keep saying mad things like: We might need to get you to Wales, Bina. How are you in small boats? Do you get seasick? We have a safehouse ready in Wales.

  Lookit here, I tell them. Stop all this mad talk. The only way I would go to Wales is on a coach. I’m not sailing from here in a boat and you’re acting like I’m an IRA man on the run, and I am not. I’m just a woman lying down. I only want to be left in peace. I don’t want to go to Wales.

  And it never goes very well from there, the conversation.

  You can lie down in Wales, they say.

  I prefer it when they leave me out.

  Carry on with your plans, I tell them

  I’ve things to do and a pan to boil.

  Goodnight now.

  One of the Crusties is perpetually talking about Bolivarians.

  I don’t like the sound of it.

  I am a woman who likes a clean pair of socks

  A folded towel.

  I like the kettle boiled

  I like a good bit of peace

  I never intended to end up in such a situation as this.

  I’d tell you I don’t know how it happened, except I am here telling you exactly how it happened.

  What makes even less sense is how I invited all this trouble into my own lap. That’s the question I’d ask the Bolivarians.*19

  They say they want to bring a woman to visit me and would that be alright?

  They say she’s Human Rights and might help me

  I say unless she is useful, she shouldn’t bother coming

  They ask me to define useful and this is the thing with Crusties and all their defining. Now I have an awful headache. Define that amongst yourselves. I’m going to bed.

  I have done things people asked me to do because they need or needed doing.

  I was not supposed to do those things.

  I have lost all my courage now.

  It is a shame that.

  Courage can be lost.

  It can be beaten out of you.

  It’s a shame that.

  There’s probably a voice somewhere among you parping, only if you let them, Bina

  That is rubbish.

  You might not let them

  But life will beat the courage out of you

  While emboldening the chancers like Eddie.

  The chancers will always rise again.

  That’s a warning.

  Almost a command.

  That’s what’s created the embezzlers.

  They have stored up all the courage beaten and suctioned from those around them.

  I see their kissers all over the papers.

  They never put their heads down when photographed

  Because they never go to prison.

  Why would they go to prison when they can run away to New Jersey and hide behind a gate?

  That’s what Phil said about embezzlers.

  That’s what Phil said about Eddie.

  He’s gone to Canada to hide in a whorehouse, but even the whores will have a pain in their hole listening to him, and he’ll be back. You’ll see.

  They’re working women, I said, not whores. I’m exceedingly grateful to them.

  Give over Bina, she said.

  Bina didn’t like it when Phil said

  Eddie would be back.

  She did not like the words Eddie and back.

  She doesn’t want him back, ever.

  How do you stop someone coming back, though?

  More precisely, how do you stop a man coming back?

  A man bigger than you.

  A man you are afraid of.

  That was another question Bina asked Phil.

  And it was a question Phil asked Bina.

  How do you know?

  Let those who want to be gone, be gone, Phil said to Bina

  In the hopes that those you don’t want to come back, won’t.

  It was a hint

  Clearly.

  Phil was bold this way

  The way she’d take words and lace them up

  Backwards.

  And she was convincing.

  Because she had a big heart, Phil did.

  Big strong heart in a small fraught woman.

  But those were the wrong words

  Wrong words, wrong thoughts, wrong sentiment.

  But that wasn’t why she’d have helped Phil.

  Phil, though, gave her the idea

  The solution

  See now

  If Phil was in the room

  Eddie couldn’t be in the room

  As there was no room in the bed for two bodies.

  She’d put Phil in the room

  As the means to Eddie never coming back.

  That was her plan

  That was the plan she had gone to tell Phil the morning she found her.

  I even bought a new mattress

  And pillows

  I had the clean sheets ready to go on the bed.

  I was keeping them warm in the hot press.

  If I’d put them on before I’d leftr />
  Maybe Phil wouldn’t be gone.

  These are the nonsense questions Bina sometimes asks herself.

  What if?

  Why didn’t she?

  How could she?

  What Bina knows is that when a person has had enough

  There’s nothing to make them stay

  Even if you are there

  Holding the sign that says, No.

  Even if you threaten to arrest them

  They’ll just go all the faster.

  Because even though Bina knows Phil was wrong

  She had promised that when Phil said she’d had enough, she would believe her.

  She does believe her

  She just doesn’t want to

  She wants to tell her that she hadn’t had enough

  Not yet.

  But Bina knows that’s all wrong.

  I hadn’t had enough of Phil

  That was the trouble

  I had had enough of Eddie

  But not Phil

  And that’s why I believe that Phil was wrong

  I also believe Eddie was wrong

  Eddie should have wanted to be gone

  Because no one wants Eddie to stay.

  Bina pauses.

  She contemplates whether if now, over there, in Canada, wherever he is, whoever is suffering him, there’s someone who wants him to stay.

  And in the same way as she cannot see that Phil had had enough, she cannot conceive that anyone would want Eddie near them. Because he’s awful. Unremittingly so. Consistently.

  In this regard, there’s no distance between those two dots.

  They are both red.

  Red dots.

  Who is gone

  And who stays.

  Unresolvable

  Big red dots.

  *1 Go cold on them. Go cold on the chancer who might wrap himself around your legs. Or have his hand inside your purse.