Midwinter Break

by Bernard Maclaverty

  There was a clear plastic thing over her face for her to breathe into and she could hear faintly the nee-naw of the ambulance she was in. The ambulance man was busy doing things to her and occasionally he would break off to rub the back of her hand and say things to encourage her. Everything is going to be all right. Her head pounded with the realisation that if she’d been shot . . . her baby’d been shot. She began to pray, with an intensity summoned up from her penetrated innards, that if anyone was to die here it should be her, and not her baby. What she needed was a miracle. So she said a prayer until she trembled. And she made a vow. That if her baby was spared she would . . . someone was shaking her. Speaking to her. It was Gerry crouched in front of her. The place was still dark.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘I thought you’d gone.’ His voice was hoarse and hung-over. ‘I’ve been looking for you. Everywhere.’ He was almost on his hands and knees in an attempt to get down to her level. Stella straightened up in the seat, blinked and checked herself for drool by wiping the sides of her mouth. Her heart was still pounding.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ She shuddered and said, ‘I haven’t had one of those in years.’

  He knew to look at her. He reached out and took her hand.

  ‘It’s the stress,’ he said.

  ‘Brought on by drunks.’

  ‘You’re shaking.’

  ‘You think I don’t know?’

  Gerry rose from the ground at her knees and slid onto the empty seat beside her. He squeezed her hands hard. Encircled her shoulders with his arm, kept patting her. His breath smelled stale. Then he guided her head onto his shoulder. Laid his cheek against her hair and brow.

  ‘You poor thing.’

  ‘It’s like it’s happening all over again. Now. Still.’

  ‘It may not be the best place in the world to be, but focus on here. Listen hard to the airport. Don’t go back there. Concentrate. Stay with me, here.’ He stroked the back of her hand with his fingers and held her tightly with his other arm. For what seemed like ages. Gradually her tremors began to lessen.

  ‘What time is it?’ she said.

  ‘After seven.’

  ‘Did you remember my bag?’

  He pointed to it by his side. His own bag was at his feet.

  ‘I’m parched,’ he said.

  When the tremors stopped Stella rummaged in her bag and produced the plastic bottle half full of water.

  ‘It’ll be tepid.’ He put it to his mouth, tilted his head back and drank.

  ‘At least it’s wet.’ He offered it to her. She drank but before she finished the last mouthful she paused and offered it to him. He nodded for her to finish it.

  ‘Did you sleep at all?’ he asked.

  ‘Bits.’ Stella looked over her shoulder towards the dark window. ‘Still chucking it down.’

  ‘It stopped a couple of times,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘I thought you’d gone off and left me.’

  ‘Where is there to go?’

  All around them people were waking up. Airport chimes and announcements had begun. A child was crying nearby. As discreetly as she could Stella checked beneath her arms.

  ‘And what about selling the flat?’ said Gerry.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You get me at a bad time, Gerry.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘There would have to be compromises.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘The compromises a deluded alcoholic has to make.’

  ‘I’m not a deluded alcoholic.’

  ‘In saying that, you prove you’re both. Deluded and alcoholic.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Gerry, you can be such a pest. You think I don’t know how much you drink? If I mention it, I become a nag. Do you not think I have a nose? Or a pair of eyes? You could go on doing it behind-backs until you’ve no liver left. And it’s not just the drinking – it’s all the deception that goes with it. There’s nobody can fix this but yourself.’

  ‘If you’re serious, then so am I.’

  ‘How many times have I heard this?’

  ‘Once or twice.’ He shrugged. ‘So after last night I quit.’

  ‘You’re making a vow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A sacred vow?’

  ‘I don’t believe in such things. It’s my vow. It’s what I say I will do.’

  ‘And if you fail?’

  ‘I’ll get help. Make it again.’

  ‘You are the only one who can make the changes.’

  ‘I gave up smoking – the hardest thing I ever did. Lying in the hearth puffing cheroots up the chimney when you’d gone to bed.’

  ‘And you think I didn’t notice? In the mornings when I went in to pull the curtains. When you did it eventually I was proud of you.’

  He took her hand in his, stroked the back of it. The skin shone in the oblique light. He blinked a little then looked at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Everything.’ He continued to stare at her. ‘When I look at you I see all the ways you were.’ There was a long silence between them. ‘And are. You could have married anybody and made it work.’

  ‘Except you , obviously.’

  ‘Admiration is part of it too . . .’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Love.’ He looked around to see if anyone could hear him. ‘I love you,’ he whispered. ‘As well as admire you.’ There was another silence between them. Stella withdrew her hand from his and raised her shoulders in a gesture.

  ‘You would behave differently if you did. You used to be such a caring individual. Your drinking ruins everything – it leaves the other person lonely.’

  ‘You planned this whole trip.’

  ‘It was a notion I had,’ Stella said quietly. ‘I had to look into it.’

  ‘I’m sorry about last night’s performance . . .’

  ‘I’ve heard all this before.’

  ‘Last night was the end of my allocation.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’ She folded her arms. Then turned to look straight at him. ‘And what about the mockery?’

  ‘I’ve never mocked you, Stella.’

  ‘What about my faith?’

  ‘That’s a debate. We’re talking about debating the greatest deception of our lives.’

  ‘If that’s not mockery then I don’t know what is. People are looking for meaning and purpose.’

  ‘But if the meaning and purpose they find is false,’ said Gerry. ‘What then?’

  ‘Look again. Look harder. Look better, as Mister Beckett might say.’

  ‘But if there’s nothing there?’

  ‘My religion is the practice of my religion. Mass is the most precious thing in my life. It’s the storyboard of how to get through. It’s what I am and you must respect me for it, not mock me.’

  ‘But you must allow me my truth,’ said Gerry. ‘The truth.’

  ‘You’re doing it again. Dismissing me,’ she said. Stella stared at him. She lifted her washbag. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and got unsteadily to her feet. He looked up at her.

  ‘I need to know.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll be back.’

  Overnight the level of detritus had everywhere crept up. The waste bins, which Gerry couldn’t find the night before, were spilling onto the floor. Cardboard coffee cups with plastic lids, newspapers, pyramid sandwich wrappings, tissues, orange peelings and some things which looked suspiciously like tightly bound used nappies. But what could people do? They were trapped. Something glinted in the midst of the mess but it was only mica in the floor material. Like stardust. It flickered like frost as she moved along. Her hips were painful from whatever way she’d been sitting and her innards felt tight. They still seemed to be fibrillating from her flashback. And there was a great feeling of coldness as if she had swallowed too much ice. The female toilets were queued right out into the corridor so she continued past them. There was not a seat to be had anywhere nearb
y. She saw a gap – a space empty of people – by a wall. She set down her washbag and carefully lowered herself onto the floor, reversing herself in so’s her back was supported. She was down but would she ever be able to get up again? Without a helping hand? From here she could keep an eye on the queue. Space to think. Sitting on the ground like a teenager with her knees pulled up in front of her. What was she to do? This arrangement she was proposing would have to be permanent. To beat a hasty retreat you first had to know where you were going. Her sanctuary had disappeared as of yesterday morning. She needed another place, another idea. And in a way she felt cheated. She had worked hard and endured much and felt that a companionable old age was something to look forward to, something owed to her. Like a pension. She deserved someone whose arm she could rely upon. What was love but a lifetime of conversations. And silences. Knowing when to be silent. Above all, knowing when to laugh. She closed her eyes and said a short prayer that she would make the right decision.