Ma, I've Got Meself Locked Up in the Mad House

by Martha Long

  ‘Look at this!’ and he grabbed my left arm, squeezing the artery.

  The whole side of my face, right down my body, went blue, then black. Right down to my foot. I couldn’t breathe! It felt like a ton weight on my chest, and the pain was unbearable.

  They stared, with one foot out the door, wanting to get back to work.

  ‘Look at that!’ he roared maniacally, watching my face turn black, and me gasping to get a breath. He let go and raced to the phone. The others flew out the door, making their escape.

  ‘I’m convinced I’ve discovered a new condition! We’ll be in the medical books!’ he puffed, getting himself out of breath with all his excitement. ‘Oh, yes!’ he told himself, pointing his finger at the air. ‘But first things first! I must inform someone,’ he gasped, spluttering at me as he tore himself over to grab up the phone.

  ‘Hello! Yes, I’m hanging on!’ he shouted, bending himself in two, rocking backwards and forwards as he leaned his head into the phone.

  Then he straightened himself, stretching his neck to the ceiling, giving out a big snort of impatience. ‘Stupid girl,’ he muttered, drumming his fingers on the desk, nearly crying with the impatience on him. ‘Come on! Come on!’ he moaned, snapping his teeth together. Then he discovered something interesting – his tongue – and started sucking like mad, trying to lick the tip of his nose. He got fed up and whipped himself around, staring at me. Suddenly his eyes lit up, as if he just remembered something interesting.

  ‘I have three other patients with the same condition!’ he babbled, seeing me still trying to get my shoes on and recover from near death.

  ‘How are they doing?’ I gasped, still fighting to get a breath.

  ‘Oh! One is in a wheelchair, the other one is doing fine. Now! The third one?’ He thought about this, scratching his head. ‘I don’t know. She hasn’t come back.’

  I hobbled out the door.

  ‘Wait! Where are you going?’ he shouted. ‘Come back! No, wait! I’m not finished with you yet!’

  I heard the phone dropping as he came tearing out after me. I hurried off, hearing his heels hammering down the passage, then felt his hot breath down me neck as he reached out to grab me.

  Fuck! Help! This aul fella is a raving lunatic. I gasped as he grabbed hold of my left arm, cutting off the circulation. It was making it hard for me to breathe. ‘Let go!’ I roared, dragging meself away from him.

  ‘You can’t leave now!’ he shrieked. ‘We’ve only just started!’

  ‘What?’ I said, not able to take anything in, me brain was all muddled. Jesus! I don’t know where I am. This pain is killing me. Me heart feels like a sledgehammer crushing me chest, and the pain is twisting itself around my body, crippling me muscles. That’s because of all his fucking mauling!

  I glared at him, snorting air in and out with the rage.

  ‘Where do you think you are going?’ he barked, pinning me to the spot with his huge bloodshot eyes. I couldn’t see much of them. His glasses were too thick. I stared closer, seeing his bull’s eyes were nearly boring holes in me.

  ‘That’s it! I’m getting out of here!’ I roared. It came out in a rasp. ‘Listen! Who the hell do you think you are? Out of my way!’ I pushed past him.

  ‘No! Wait!’ He rushed after me, putting his hand on my arm again.

  ‘Let go!’ I growled, gritting me teeth and slapping his hand away.

  ‘You have “Left Limb Syndrome!”’ he boomed. ‘It could CRIPPLE you without my intervention!’ He beamed at this thought, rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Oh!’ I said, feeling the rage seep outa me and me stomach fill with heat as hope flared up through me chest.

  ‘Can you cure me?’ I asked hopefully. ‘Take away the pain?’ I asked quietly, looking into his massive goitre eyes.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, thinking about this. Letting his mind wander. I waited, holding me breath. Then it looked to me like he was only thinking about himself. Getting the picture of himself being famous in the medical world.

  There will be wonderful write-ups about myself in The Lancet. There will be accolades, applause. I will have invitations to tour across the world, giving lectures! Money no object. Women! They will throw themselves at my feet.

  ‘Well?’ I said, getting impatient to hear the news. ‘Can you help me?’

  He blinked, then settled his eyeballs on me. ‘Well, eh, nooo,’ he said slowly, beginning to look very shifty. ‘There is no cure. It’s not even in the textbooks. It would be trial and error. I would have to experiment with various drugs,’ he said, looking at me, seeing me shaking my head with disappointment.

  His head shook with me, agreeing. Then his face creased with sudden worry. He could see everything was fast going down the swanney, seeing another ‘Left Limb Syndrome’ vanish from his clutches.

  ‘Let’s go back to my clinic,’ he said, wringing his hands. Then his head flew back to the phone. It was sitting on the desk with a voice shouting, ‘Hello? Hello? Anyone there?’

  ‘Someone on the phone,’ I said, throwing me head over at it.

  He flew to the phone, snatching it up, saying, ‘Oh yes! Sorry! This is . . .’

  Then it hit me. ‘Drugs!’ I squeaked. ‘You want to fill me full of drugs!’ The rage hit me again. The cheek! ‘How dare you? Get stuffed! Find another guinea pig,’ I rasped, making me way out the door again.

  ‘No! No, wait!’ he choked, dropping the phone to make another go after me. ‘You could end up in a wheelchair without treatment!’ he gasped, landing himself right in front of me.

  I watched as he stretched his arms, holding them rigid down by his side. Only letting the fingers curl like mad.

  ‘Nutter!’ I muttered to meself, then walked around him, making me escape, then hurrying, desperate to make me way out of the hospital.

  So! That’s that then. There’s no cure for whatever is causing this godforsaken never-ending pain. Right! But that’s the last time I ever expose myself to them fool doctors. They just mess me around with no idea of what they are doing. I will just have to find a way of living with it. Christ! What a madman! I seem to spend my life attracting madness. Bloody hell! Am I glad just to be out of there!

  3

  * * *

  I opened my eyes slowly, staring out the window, seeing the trees shaking their branches, fighting to stay upright, determined not to be beaten by a howling wind. They had stood their ground for centuries, and no February storm was going to get the better of them. No. The gobshite yelling I might end up in a wheelchair didn’t bother me. What would he know?

  The heavy weight sitting inside me sank deeper into me, and I felt cold, numb. I stared at my hands sitting in my lap, waiting. For what? Morning to come, then the day to pass, and another night to get through without even the pleasure of a bit of sleep. I can’t bloody sleep! I just doze fitfully.

  I closed my eyes, and the images started flying across my brain again. Months! But it could only be yesterday. It is so painfully etched in my mind, it haunts me day and night. I am still there, locked in that time. Harry! My poor Harry. Is this what you felt, Harry?

  I had been happily sitting down to a pot of tea and a smoke. Feeling all delighted with myself to get the pile of ironing out of the way. You would have thought I was ironing for the Salvation Army, there was so much of it! Sheets, pillowcases and nearly every stitch of clothes in the house. I had let it all pile up. Jaysus, I hate ironing!

  Then the phone rang. I hope that’s Charlie. Yeah, it probably is Charlie. My poor little long-suffering brother. He’ll be ringing now to give me fifteen verses of the ‘Tinker’s Litany’. Ah! Poor thing. He called earlier as usual. But I wouldn’t let him cook himself something to eat. Jaysus! He messes up me kitchen! ‘Wait, love,’ I’d said. ‘Leave it to me. I will cook you something nice when I’ve finished this ironing.’

  ‘Ah, Jaysus, no, Martha! I’m starvin wit the hunger!’ he gasped, staring at me with the big blue eyes lifting outa his head.

  �
�No, Charlie!’ I was ruthless, determined to carry on with my ‘Little Susie Homemaker’ chores.

  ‘But I brought me own stuff, Martha!’ he snorted, flinging open his palm, showing me the two little Oxo cubes sitting snugly in the palm of his hand. ‘All I need now wit these is a bit a bread,’ he puffed.

  I stared at them. ‘No! We don’t need them. I have a lovely bit of fish I got in Moore Street today. We can fry that with a lovely fluffy omelette.’ I was planning something else for our dinner.

  ‘Ah, come on outa tha, Martha! Ye’re goin te kill me! I’m droppin outa me standin, Martha. Jaysus! I don’t know what’s come over you. Ye never used te be like this, Martha,’ he whispered, looking very worried. Then he whipped his head around, letting his eyes bulge at the amount of stuff all waiting for my ministrations with the iron.

  I was stone deaf to his moans, pleas, nearly crying, about, ‘I’m droppin dead wit the hunger.’

  ‘No!’ I ploughed on, determined to get the ironing done.

  So that was that. Charlie left in a sulk. Not understanding where the new brutal Martha came from. Not since Sarah, my daughter, left home, leaving me with one arm longer than the other. Not knowing what hit me! I had nothing to mother. Now I put all my mothering and nurturing into the house. Except now it’s gone too far. I’m now gone a little bit funny. Sort of peculiar! Yeah. No one can upset the cushions. You can’t lean against them! Oh no! Or I’ll rush to grab them up, giving them a smack to get the stuffing fluffed up again. Or even walk on me fireside rug. Definitely not! It ruins the pile! Jaysus! No wonder poor Charlie is the only one left willing to put up with me madness!

  I picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello, Martha! Is tha you, Martha?’

  My antenna went up. I was instantly on alert. ‘Is that you, Dinah?’

  ‘Yeah! It is me, Martha.’

  Ah, Jaysus! What do they want now? It’s a pity that Charlie fella gave the ma me phone number. Or did I give it to her in one of me magnanimous moods? It’s the only way she has of contacting me, and that’s under strict instructions. For emergencies only, please. Otherwise the ma would eat me alive with her wants! Jaysus, she’s insatiable. She would have the life sucked outa me and the home from over me head. Not to mention run ragged trying to dig her outa the latest ‘Big Troubles’. No, she knows very little about me, certainly not to come to where I live. Oh no. My life is my own. I’ve had enough to do, paddling up the creek without a paddle!

  So I dash over to their world, pick them up, dust them down, then rush back to me own bright and airy, very civilised world. Well, it’s peaceful now. Too peaceful! Pity poor Charlie and me had that row. We could have been sitting here having a lovely dinner. I was going to forget the fish and omelette, and cook instead his favourite – ‘Martha’s Pie’! Invented it meself. A mixture between shepherd’s pie and the Greek moussaka one! I put thick white sauce in mine, with loads of grated cheese. Lovely! Then we could have sat and talked and laughed ourselves stupid, remembering who it was that caused that particular trouble as we wandered back down through all the days of our life together. We are very close. Charlie has always depended on me. ‘Now these days I need him,’ I sighed.

  Tut! That’s a pity. Now I’m stuck with me own company and only the silence to listen to, or maybe Bonzo me dog might come rambling home tonight. He better! Or next time he decides to come home from his gallivanting – with his wandering the streets from one day till the next. Well! That fella won’t see the light of day outside this door for at least a week! Yes, that should put a stop to his gallop!

  Jaysus! I never get anything right! But the less I see of me ma, the better for me. I hear, though, what’s going on through Charlie. He meets some of them around the town and gets the news from them. No! We live lives apart. I’ve now become terribly respectable. You’d nearly need an appointment to see me! I live in the middle of others who think they are terribly respectable too.

  We were all doing grand until they built that bloody awful fancy estate up the road. Some gobshite architect came rolling back from America with the plans under his arm. We never saw the like of it! Huge houses on the outside, with open gardens. But you have to go in sideways to get into the house. They’re dog boxes! And the price of them! We said they would never sell. Sure, who’d have that kind of money?

  But they did. To a shower of yuppies! They tear around in dark sunglasses in the pitch-black evenings. I see them. They pass my window, humped over the steering wheel, leaning themselves out through the windscreens, trying to see where they’re going. Blind as bats they are. But not a bother on them as they sit up there in their new Jags and show-off Mercedes, waving at us. The cheek!

  We stare at them, saying, ‘Ah! They’re very vulgar. No class at all.’ ‘Thank God they are well away from us!’ we sniff. But we’re really only jealous because we don’t have Mercedes and fur coats like them. None of us can figure out where they got the money. Then we lift ourselves with the comforting thought, Ah, sure, our houses are better than theirs! We have lovely, cosy old family houses.

  ‘The state of that awful, modern American-looking rubbish! It actually brings down the tone of our quiet, select neighbourhood!’ my old dear of a neighbour whispered to me.

  ‘Agreed!’ I sniffed, shaking me head in disgust. ‘Shocking! Shocking the lack of taste of these people,’ I snorted.

  Everyone standing around agreed with me. We all shook our heads, agreeing with each other, then wandered off to mind our own business, feeling self-satisfied, knowing we have good taste and breeding!

  Mind you! But the real truth is, come to think about it, our bleedin houses are ‘Jerry Built’! Yeah. They were knocked up just as the war ended. I only realised that when I tried to put up wallpaper and it kept falling down, taking the fingernail, inch-thick plaster with it. The bloody walls are so thin I’m expecting the neighbours any day now to put their hands through the walls and dip into my gravy!

  Course I don’t admit that. No! It looks very classy from the outside. Neighbours rush in, wanting to know where I bought me ‘French doors’ from. That’s what I call them. They cover in the porch. Now they’ve all copied me! The road is a line of French doors. So now I have an apple tree growing right in my front garden. I’m to be seen picking them off the tree come September, telling the jealous, sour-faced neighbours, ‘They’re organic, you know! It’s simply marvellous having one’s own orchard!’ They don’t have one. I robbed mine, when it was newly planted, from the convent grounds across the road.

  Anyway! The yuppies go mad trying to outdo each other. The latest is the facelifts. They got that idea from watching Dallas. Mind you, they need it! Because of all the worrying about bank drafts and loans, and that sort of thing. You’d get a pain in yer face listening to them.

  ‘Darling!’ they say, purring at each other. Bloody awful people. ‘Bank manager’s sooo boring, my dear. Always going on about sorting out one’s finances! Really! I ask you!’ they breathe at each other, squinting behind the dark glasses to see if the newly dyed blonde clone of themselves has her black roots showing.

  That’s what I had to listen to down at the private school my daughter Sarah attended. Now there’s a financial crash and the facelifts are drooping. They can’t give their houses away! No one wants a big house. They’re too expensive to run. And it’s the same with the big cars. Everyone is standing at the bus stop. I’m enjoying myself no end, driving slowly past them standing at the bus stop. Watching the miserable faces staring gloomily after me. Seeing the sopping umbrellas dripping down the backs of their neck. They’re left waiting for a bus that’s never going to come. It’s broken down! CIE can’t afford new ones, not with the depression. It fills me to the brim with emotion. I sigh all the way into town, feeling nice and cosy. I keep the heater going full blast and snort in me contentment, listening to Bach playing on the radio. It’s soothing me into a false sense of security, of course.

  I worry now all the time about money. Not having enough to pay
the bills. One of these days I’m going to be dragging me belly around with the hunger. I worry about what’s going to be on the dinner menu. Soon, I’ll be shovelling inta bread an dripping. What with the way the recession is digging even deeper!

  They don’t call it that any more. It’s now a world depression. Money is becoming a rarity. The EEC have huge mountains of food. All taken off the farmers to give them a few bob. Our government get their hands on the stuff and give it out to us. One year it can be the butter mountain. Then we’re all living on good butter for a while. The next year it might be cans of meat. Some people open the can and sniff at it suspiciously, saying it reminds them of the stuff their grandads used to get in the trenches in the First World War – ‘Bully Beef’! It might still be the same stuff, so they won’t eat it. Or then again, another time we might even get the best of rump steak. Some people manage to get their hands on so much of it they even sell it to the rest of us! Them with the few bob.

  Very few people have cars now. The few who do only have them because they’re handy with fixing them up. It’s mostly clapped-out bangers, all held together with bits of other junked cars. Rust buckets that gave up staggering around the roads.

  We have to drive with our headlights on because we can’t see through the black fumes coming outa the exhausts and the engines! The latest hint from the government is we should turn off our engines when waiting at the traffic lights. Saves petrol! I mostly walk and only take ‘Daisy’ out for emergencies.

  At this rate of going . . .

  ‘Hello! Hello! Are ye gone, Martha?!’

  ‘What! Oh, sorry, Dinah. No! No, I’m listening. Go on!’ Jaysus! My mind is always bloody wandering these days.

  ‘Martha, I’m at the hospital! They phoned me te come in! Me ma is here. It’s Harry! He’s dead, Martha!’