Wild Decembers

by Edna O'Brien

  “Are you medium rare or am I medium rare?” T.J. asks of Breege, who is sitting at the end of her bed in a black dress with a white organza collar. Only then does he realise that she is a patient also, and bowing, he gives her one of the Christmas boxes. He watches her opening it. It is a pen, encrusted with mauve and silver filigree, and he tests the colour of the ink by making a small x on the back of her hand.

  “I was thinking that if no one sang I’d have to sing myself … but now I have you.”

  She looks away, then looks to Chrissie to save her.

  “She can’t … she’s not able,” Chrissie says.

  “Just for me … go on … make my Christmas … ‘Jingle Bells’ … ‘White Christmas’ … anything.”

  It was the song that Bugler had given her:

  October winds lament around the Castle of Dromore,

  Yet peace is in its lofty halls,

  My loving treasure stored.

  Her voice carried, clear and pure and trilling, down the length of the ward, but because she had turned away from the faces and towards the window, Ger was not sure from whom the voice came and he followed it on tiptoe, up close to her, his mouth half open lest she should falter or break down.

  Bring no ill wind to hinder us, my helpless babe and me —

  Dread spirit of Blackwater banks, Clan Eoin’s wild banshee,

  And Holy Mary pitying me, in Heaven for grace doth sue,

  Sing hush-a-bye, lul, lul, lo, lo, lau,

  Sing hush-a-bye, lul, lul, loo.

  Kevin thought to shoot at her, but the others gathered nearer, and a nurse arriving with a tray of lemonade plonked it on a chair in shock.

  “You’re cured … Jesus, you’re cured,” Ger said, his own voice singsong, charged with excitement and disbelief.

  “Well, I never,” the nurse said, picking up the tray to pass the glasses around.

  “That was super great,” T.J. said.

  “That was super shite,” Millie said.

  “Say something, Breege … say hello,” Ger said.

  “Hello,” she said, looking around, and she smiled, as helpless to tell them why she could speak as she had been that day in the ladies’ room of the hotel when she felt it coming on her, a kind of brainstorm with words tumbling around inside, like clothes in a washing machine, words that were either too loving or too hating or too telling to be said, and her struggling to say them but finding they would not come, like a stone, a plum stone that was stuck there. She ran her hand down her throat, but it felt exactly the same to her.

  “It’s a miracle,” Ger said, and he went out to find the matron and tell her.

  T.J. is kneeling by Breege, inviting her to his shop as soon as she is allowed out. It is called The Pantry. She will recognise it by the man’s bicycle outside the door with leeks and provisions in a basket and in the window a big bronze bell hundreds of years old. Will she promise? Will she come? For Millie it is too much, she has been relegated; she sits on the floor, kicking her shoes off, then peels down her grey lisle stockings, raises her legs, and moves them scissors-like and lewd.

  “Now now … no wrangling,” T.J. says, and goes to her, holding out a packet of cigarettes, saying she can take two.

  “Am I ugly?” She bawls it.

  “You are not … you’re beautiful.”

  “They said I was ugly.”

  “Who said?”

  “Them … them shites.” She is looking from Breege, to Chrissie, to Ger, to Kevin, then back again, scowling, her tongue stuck out, undecided as to who she hates most.

  “Okay, okay, you’re all welcome to The Pantry, all of you,” T.J. says, scanning each face, and then, looking at his wristwatch, he darts towards the chimney, shouts some abracadabra into it, and then vanishes out through the open door.

  OUT IN THE GROUNDS Bugler is hurrying from one person to another, from one building to another in search of the right ward. He is wearing a dark serge suit and a white collarless shirt and is carrying a bunch of heather which he is trying to conceal.

  A porter directs him to the main building, and hurrying in, he finds a man just leaving and says, “I’m lost … I’m completely lost.” The man tells him he sure is, because only staff occupy that building and very soon it is going to come tumbling down.

  “The bulldozer is a-coming,” he says with a certain gusto. Reluctantly, he goes behind the desk, opens a drawer, and takes out a tattered ledger, unties the twine, then runs his finger down the list of names to find Breege.

  “Brennan … Mary Nonnie,” he says, victorious.

  “No … Breege.”

  “A widow?”

  “She’s a young girl.”

  “Ah now … She must be listed somewhere,” he says, insisting that every patient is docked and filed, and then he laughs aloud and says that it is no wonder he is confused, because isn’t he looking at the wrong year. He concludes by saying that the best thing for the visitor to do is to go to the east wing, where everything, all data, is bang up-to-date.

  The east wing turns out to be a ruin, broken windows, a boarded-up door, empty birds’ nests hanging from bits of trailing creeper. From there he crosses to a low corrugated building where at least there is a light. Inside, a radio is going full blast, but the office is unattended. He calls, waits, calls again, and hears footsteps coming from within. An excitable nurse in a paper hat comes out and says merrily, “Santa Claus, Elvis,” adding that without her, the place would go haywire. In case he would like to know, she’s Fiona, which to some means white swan. When he says Breege’s name, she frowns and recalls the young ones, brats, spoilt rotten, nothing wrong with them, only airs.

  “She came about ten days ago.”

  “I know. I know … The hair always over the face, so as not to look at you … A dummy.”

  “Would you let me see her?”

  “I’d do more than that for you,” she says skittish, but seeing that he is in no mood to flirt she agrees to go off and find a Sister in charge. As she disappears to an inner hall, she turns to ask if she can get him anything, tea, coffee, or something stronger.

  Soon they are crossing a cinder path to yet another building and she is asking him to guess what most of these lunatics’ problems are. She answers for him. Sex. Sex. Sex — forever taking their clothes off. She says he would not believe the things she has witnessed, striptease, morning, noon and night, women no better than the men, turning it into a nudist colony. In the office a young pimply porter wearing a baseball cap looks up, irked at being disturbed. He says Sister is on a call.

  “Try her, Jimmy,” Fiona says, and gives him a wink.

  “She’s off now,” he says, holding the phone, then frowns and says, “Jesus, she’s on it again … She’s never off it.”

  Nothing for it but to wait. Fiona says if she doesn’t get back to her ward there will be blue murder. She gives him a peck and says if ever he wants a good dance he knows who to call up.

  The supervisor is a stout crusty woman whose patience is sorely tried because Nurse Egan who was to come to relieve her has not shown up. As she lays eyes on Bugler she stiffens. He is the sort of man she cannot bear, the iron warrior on horseback. She tells him flatly that she can’t help. The doors to each of the wards are already locked and no one, only night staff, can enter.

  “Always locked at the peal of the Angelus.”

  “I’ve been out there nearly an hour.”

  “That’s not my fault,” she says. Their eyes meet, hers hot and puffy from having had three sherries, his overcalm, his jawbone clenched under his trimmed beard. She sees determination in him and thinks that the little pearl button holding the collar is about to snap off.

  “I’ll only stay a minute.”

  “No way.”

  “It’s Christmas Day.”

  “Must have rules,” she says, putting on a false accent, the better to dismiss him, her breathing flurried.

  “This isn’t right,” he says, looking around as if there were someone
else he could appeal to.

  “Do you want to leave the flowers or not?” she says tartly.

  He thought for a moment, loath to hand them over to her, fearing that they might end up in the reception hall.

  “I need to write a note,” he said, turning his back on her.

  “Please yourself,” she said, and went off, telling Jimmy that no strays were to be allowed beyond that door.

  He stood by a ledge, staring at the crumpled bill head, on which he had written the few words: I picked this near where we saw the salmon leap.

  It was not enough. There was something more he wanted to say, and despite the reserve of his nature he asked the young man for a sheet of hospital paper, and then he sat down and wrote it.

  THE OVERCOOKED BIRD lies abject in a pan of lumpy gravy, diced apple and chestnut spewing out of it. It is going cold. Rosemary has been interrogating for over an hour. Why did he not telephone her? Why is he dressed up? She had been asleep when he left, so togged out. In the end he admitted it, said he had gone to the hospital to see a friend.

  “Oh, the loony lady down the road … her?”

  “Yes, her.”

  “Why didn’t you bring me along?”

  “I didn’t think it would be fair to her.”

  “Shit … I’m your fiancée and you don’t think it would be fair to her.”

  “She’s very shy.”

  “I had an unfailing trust in you and you’ve broken it.”

  “It’s not like that, Rosemary.”

  “Oh, what is it like … describe it to me … She’s a kindred spirit … Cathleen ni Houlihan.”

  “You’ve met her.”

  “Of course I met her … What do you do, Breege? Nothing was her answer … no self-esteem …”

  “Look, she knows I’m committed to you.”

  “Her brother taking us for every penny we’ve got and you’re sweet on her.”

  “She never wanted war between her brother and me … She begged of me.”

  “This has gone much further than I thought. Did you bring her flowers or chocolates, or both?”

  “Look, she’s sick … she’s alone … she’s frightened.”

  “I don’t care if she dies.”

  “That’s the ugliest thing I ever heard you say.”

  “I feel threatened, Mick. I don’t want to believe that there is something between you and her.”

  “My mates were right when they said that the softest bit of you is your teeth. Your own brother said it.”

  “I took this … this bog on board with you … My parents took it on board with you. Without them you couldn’t have made it.”

  He turned aside, begging her to let it rest, to dish out the dinner, to pour themselves a glass of wine, to say Happy Christmas, to let bygones be bygones. But as he began to lay the table, she had started again, unable now to contain herself, talking of the sacrifice she was making, the things she had given up, a fantastic life, a stunning career, a warm climate, to come to an asshole, a nowhere, no friends, no stimulus, only a big wet prick of a mountain. Then she picked up the present which he had brought and which she had not opened. She dropped it violently to the floor. They could hear pieces of glass shattering, the abrupt crazy shatter of broken glass, and then the little squeals that were almost animal-like as the broken pieces resettled.

  “What was it?”

  “Perfume.”

  “I didn’t mean it about wanting her dead,” she said, and held desperately to him, to have him know that there was a Rosemary underneath the Rosemary that bitched.

  “You’re all right, you’re all right,” he said, picking up the box.

  “I’m prepared to forgive if you promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want you to bring me there … I want to walk into that ward with you holding hands … I want that. I want her to see that.”

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “You kissed her, didn’t you?”

  “Once.”

  “You fucked her?”

  “You’re disgusting,” he said, and leaned across to tear a piece of the skin off the turkey to show his hunger. She would not have it. She picked up the pan and moved with it, moving unsteadily as if she might throw it at him. Seeing him go out, she rushed to get in his way and said that she would not spend another night in that house unless he told her everything, everything.

  “Please yourself,” he said, hurrying into the yard and over the wall to the field beyond.

  * * *

  It was pitch dark and it had begun to pour with rain. He walked the length and breadth of three fields, as if he was just trying to discover what he ought to do. Three new bullocks, not used to their new surroundings, were bawling, ill at ease with his own animals, who outnumbered them. It was too dark to see them. The only single light in the whole gloom was from Brennan’s house. How easy if he could go down there and knock on the door and say what was on his mind. Or how easy to go back up and tell Rosemary that her jealousy had no foundation. But it was not possible, because it was not true.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor with a blanket over her, like an invalid. She had been crying. She looked up at him pitifully, said it was the shock of everything, the unfamiliarity of everything, and no friend to turn to. He had to be lover and friend, something not easy for a man to take. She had had a brilliant idea. They would be married sooner. They would not wait for the big wedding with family and friends, things he loathed anyhow, they would marry in secret and then everything would be all right, because she would not feel so threatened. He remembered the superstition he had overheard as a child, that the groom should never be let see the bride’s dress. It was there in the wardrobe, all twenty yards of it, cream and with a flounce. The clemency that he felt when walking back, the guilt that he felt for having brought her all this way, and the remorse for going to the graveyard were gone now, and he was terse again.

  “We did love one another.”

  “We did.”

  “And now?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to call it.”

  “Don’t worry … I have enough love for us both.”

  * * *

  It was in the bedroom in the dark that she broke down completely.

  “Mick,” she said, then waited. “I can’t go back there … Please don’t send me back.”

  “I won’t,” he said. He could feel his breath rapid and he could feel her whole body sobbing. The bed was too confining for them, the room was too small, there was not enough air for them both, he felt he was choking.

  “I’ve felt funny for days … I might even be pregnant.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “My hormones.”

  “You’re not pregnant,” he said, and reminded her crudely how he knew.

  “You’ve no intention of marrying me … You kept stringing me along. I see it now.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “You left me to come here when I was pregnant. Remember … the egg stayed as an egg … It didn’t turn into a little person. Have you wondered how I felt … I was gutted … I am gutted. I said just now I was pregnant because I wanted to test you.”

  “What’s wrong with you … you’re a pragmatic person. This isn’t you.”

  “She’s what’s wrong.”

  “She’s out of the picture.”

  “I’ll believe you if you promise that you will never see her again.” And to make sure, she turned on the bedside light and held the bulb so close to his face he could read the wattage in singed black lettering.

  THEY ARE HAVING a picnic, Ger, Breege, and Mrs. Hegarty. The overhead lights have been quenched and in the windowsill there is a stout red Christmas candle in a coronet of holly. There is a happiness between them and they smile at the sounds of the snoring, monotonous, phlegmy, from two patients farther down. Mrs. Hegarty, little Kevin’s mother, has ventured out at last, because of the light being so dim and nobody able to se
e that her hair has been falling out. Only herself has witnessed it, tufts of it each morning on her comb, alarming her.

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, catch a beggar by the toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, miney, mo.” As Ger says it he has already guessed that it will fall to Mrs. Hegarty to tell the first story.

  “I will too,” she says, as if she has waited for this moment from the very day she was admitted. She begins it sitting on the bed, but as her courage increases, she stands, gesticulates, moves about in keeping with the anger that she has felt and has had to bottle up.

  “I had a house that my uncle left me … A nice house with a nice name. Moss House. The lane up to it is mossy and a person can slip. Sometimes I let it, sometimes when it was vacant I’d go over and sit in the sitting room and look at my own things, my treasures. Then one day my husband asked me if his sister Ida could go in there for a bit. She had no home … Her husband had thrown her out and she was in a caravan. It was to be temporary … That was a year ago and she’s still in Moss House. She won’t go. All my things are flung up in the attic, my pictures and my bawneen cushions, getting damp up there, mildewed. She comes up to me last Easter in the chapel, it was Holy Thursday, and in front of the blessed sacrament she whispers to me, she says, ‘Eliza, we’ll each have joint ownership of Moss House, it’s only fair.’”

  She stops then and turns to them, close to sobbing. “That’s what they’ve done to me, my husband and his sister, that’s why I’m here.”

  “You’re all right … You’re all right,” Ger says, and pours her more lemonade.

  “You’re next,” Breege says to Ger.

  “Crikey, I don’t have a story, but I have a funny dream … Well, it’s not that funny … My wife and I are somewhere … Up home probably in Cappaderragh, and then we’re not there at all … We’re in the city and there’s a baby on a step, crying, crying its heart out, and my wife says to me, ‘Jesus, we’re going to have to do something,’ and we’re in this terrible fix looking up and down the street for the mother to come and take this baby and no one comes and the baby keeps crying and screaming and my wife says to me, ‘We’re going to have to take it, you see it’s an orphan,’” and looking first at Mrs. Hegarty and then at Breege he says, baffled, “I don’t even have a wife or a child … I’m not married.”