The Hunger Within

by J. M. Hewitt

  She can’t lose him, he’s the only one left.

  She won’t let him be taken away, especially not by a little nobody like Rose, not while she’s still got breath left in her body.

  *

  As Bronwyn boils the kettle for her morning coffee she stares around the kitchen. This is her room, her sanctuary. Like so many women all over the world the kitchen is her heart of the home and she wonders if she should maybe attempt to paint it while Danny is away. She considers her options, maybe a pale green to match her makeshift curtain.

  That curtain. Abandoning thoughts of colour schemes she moves over to the window and yanks the material aside. The view of the garden draws a sharp breath, the concrete, unevenly poured, lumpy and just an eyesore. She can’t do anything about that, but perhaps she could put some pots around the garden. She remembers the bulbs outside Mary’s house that she saw last night. It’s not too late for daffodils or crocus plants.

  It’s a sense of hope, but it’s a feeling so unfamiliar that it vanishes in an instant. Bronwyn pulls the curtain back across and goes to the fridge. She reaches for the milk but pauses as she sees Dan’s Pilsner cans at the back. She plucks one out, slams the fridge door and sits down at the kitchen table. The kettle clicks off as it boils, but instead of pouring her coffee she pulls the tab off the tin of beer. It froths up and she picks it up, sups the white foam away and then gulps from the can. When she’s finished, she crumples it in her fist and retrieves the second from the fridge.

  Her mother is still asleep when she takes the third beer into the garden. She can see her breath puffing out in front of her as she makes her way across the concrete and down towards the railway track at the bottom. Belatedly she realises she’s only wearing her thin pyjamas, so she slugs at the beer. It works a little; she’s not as cold as she should be.

  She likes it down here by the railway line. There is a lovely large flat rock that she sits on. It’s her chair and there’s a smaller one beside it which she uses to put her drink on. The commuter train passes many, many times a day, going all the way to Belfast and back again. When they had moved here to the house in Kidds Road, Bronwyn had been concerned about the noise from the trains. Now, the sound of the railway and the slight vibration that can be felt in the house is a comfort. It’s green down here too, if she sits with her back to the garden, which she invariably does, she can look out over the meadows and ignore the concrete jungle behind her.

  Sometimes the train will stop just before the bridge and she gets to watch the passengers on board. She imagines where they are travelling to, or from. Sometimes her thoughts go deeper, like the time she saw the woman staring out of the window who looked like she was crying. That made her sit up, the vision of the lady around her own age. Why the tears? Is she scared because she has broken away and is heading off on her own? Or is she sad because she can’t break free, and she’s on her way home to the same old life and the same old hurt, never with any means of escape?

  She hears the slap of approaching footsteps and she turns to see her mother, fully dressed with her hair done and her makeup on, picking her way to the railway track.

  “Christ, what are you doing out here?” Her mother asks as she stands over Bronwyn, looking around, presumably for somewhere to sit.

  Bronwyn attempts to conceal the beer can by shifting in front of it, but it’s too late.

  “It’s not even 8 o’clock,” says Alia.

  “I’d had two cans by seven,” replies Bronwyn and looks away over the fields.

  But Alia’s attention has been captured by something else and she stares down at Bronwyn’s pyjamas. Bronwyn, not liking the scrutiny, tries to cover her chest by folding her arms. Alia’s mouth is working now, and she crouches down beside her daughter.

  “Come inside, with me, darling,” she says as she bites her lip and breathes out. “You’re bleeding…”

  Bronwyn looks down at herself. Now she’s been told she can feel it, wet and warm against her body. There’s been a cramping in her stomach all night, but the alcohol had deadened it and she had forgotten. She allows Alia to help her up and as she stands, a lot more blood flows out of her.

  “It’s… I don’t think it’s my period,” Bronwyn says and she can feel hot tears in her eyes as she doubles over with the sudden pain.

  Chapter 7

  She had dropped her purse in Kilmorey Park. That was how they first met, Rose and Connor. She had taken a lunch break at the office where she worked as a copy typist in Cowan Street, and the day was so hot and sunny that she just had to get outside. It was nearing the end of August, who knew how many other nice days there would be?

  She bought a coke and a slice of sponge cake from the stall in the park and as she turned away she spotted a bench being vacated by an elderly couple. All of the other seats were full, so she slid her purse in her handbag and hurried across the grass. She had just sat down and taken her first bite of the cake when she noticed a man jogging towards her. She didn’t want company, hoped that he wasn’t going to ask to share her bench, so she looked off into the distance as his shadow fell over her.

  “You dropped this,” he said.

  She looked up then, saw her red purse in his hand. She looked at him, at his face, and felt something new in her stomach. She attempted to smile, and then chewed for what seemed like forever to get rid of the mouthful of cake.

  Somehow he ended up sitting down and somehow, to her surprise, they talked. It wasn’t her usual sort of conversation, where she would nod and insert the occasional ‘hmm’. She actually conversed with him. She felt a part of it, and her shy and introverted nature melted away. She studied him, coming to the conclusion that he was young, a lot younger than her, barely out of his teens or just in his early twenties, she would say.

  Though their chat was easy, it seemed impossible to ask to see him again, so when the time came for her to go back to work, she gave him a half wave. She paused, too long, in case he asked to see her, and when he didn’t, she hurried away, embarrassed.

  She couldn’t help but go back the next day, just in case. She took extra care with her appearance, brushing her hair in the loo at work, carefully applying a little bit of extra mascara and lipstick. She had stared at herself in the mirror, worried that she had jinxed it by trying so hard, so she messed up her hair a little and scrubbed her face clean.

  It worked. He came. He looked surprised to see her but she wondered if maybe he had had the same thoughts as her. She told herself not to be so stupid. It was her who had been a stranger to the park the day before, he probably came every day. He had tickets to see a comedian at the Daisy Hill Social Club, would she like to go, this Friday night?

  She had made a funny noise in the back of her throat and she had blushed, hoping that he hadn’t heard it. Yes, she would. And so Friday night saw them at the club. It was dark inside, and though the comedian had been funny, she didn’t laugh that much. Neither did he and in the intermission they had ducked outside. It was a warm night, but she shivered when he led her around the back of the club house and pushed her up against the wall. She couldn’t believe they were going to do it here, outside, where anyone could walk past. And as he lifted her skirt and moved her legs apart with his knees she clung onto his shoulders and looked around. Then, the sweetness overcame her, and she didn’t care who walked by as she gasped and gripped him tight.

  Now, she’s got what she wanted for so long; to see his home and meet his mother. But now she’s got what she wants, now she’s sitting in Mary Dean’s house, it doesn’t feel how she expected it to.

  *

  By the time Bronwyn arrived at the hospital there was nothing left. She lay still as she was examined, endured a D&C to ensure everything had gone. They advised her to take painkillers but she doesn’t want them. She wants to feel this. This is the most she has felt in months.

  She asks to go home, and the doctor agrees as long as someone is there. Alia immediately reassures Bronwyn that she will stay again tonight.

/>   Now they are home and all Bronwyn wants is for Alia to go and leave her be.

  “Please, ma, I just want to sleep,” Bronwyn implores.

  “You can sleep while I’m here,” says Alia as she puts the kettle on. “I can’t leave you on your own.”

  Bronwyn grips the edge of the table and looks towards the garden. She wants to scream, but if she loses her temper Alia will never go. She edges towards the door and slips her feet into her slippers.

  “Where are you going now?” Alia abandons the tea making and makes for Bronwyn.

  “Just down the garden, just for some air.”

  Bronwyn slips out and pulls her cardigan tighter around her as she trudges across the concrete and heads to the tracks. It’s getting dark now, she’s spent all day in the lousy hospital and she doesn’t want to lose the light. If she does, she’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

  When she reaches her rock she casts a glance behind her to make sure Alia hasn’t followed her. When she is sure that she is alone she kneels down in the wet grass. There it is, the remains of her pregnancy, just a bloodstain with a jellied texture. A stain on a rock, soon to be washed away by the harsh February rains. Suddenly it’s very important that that doesn’t happen. She stands up, brushes off her knees and moves down to the railway track. She picks up a large piece of flint and, back on her knees beside her rock, she scrapes some of the hard earth away. She pulls up a fistful of grass and scoops up as much of the red matter that she can before laying it in the small hole she has made. She covers it over, retrieves some of the peach coloured stones from the other side of the track and puts them on top of the tiny grave. She leans back on her heels and looks at her hands. They are covered with soil and blood, and she puts them to her face and lets her tears mingle with the stains.

  *

  Alia pulls the horrible old curtain aside and looks out down the garden. She holds onto the green material and decides to buy Bronwyn a nice blind, maybe those fancy horizontal ones, they do them in a nice wood effect. It will be expensive and she’s heard they are a pain to dust and keep clean, but she wants to do something for her daughter.

  Because that’s her problem right now, the feeling of being useless. Bronwyn is sinking, spiralling down in a pit filled with despair and she’s so closed off, so private and so close to the edge, that Alia doesn’t feel that she can ask too much. All she can do is keep on brewing the tea and making sure that Bronwyn eats and sleeps.

  Alia lets the curtain fall and steps outside the back door. She can hear the door of the shed banging and she makes her way over to it. She’s surprised the outbuilding is still standing. It’s as old as the house and the wooden structure is weather beaten and unstable.

  She pushes the door and sees that it won’t close; it’s actually dropped on the hinges. She opens it and peers in. It is empty, but she knows it wasn’t bare when the police came. They removed everything, covered in blankets and stacked in boxes. She thinks back to the covered shapes, she hadn’t taken much notice at the time, too concerned about them dragging Danny out of the house, but now she thinks about it, it makes sense. The odd hours that Danny keeps, his secretive nature, the absence of friends and finally, the fact that he’s now in prison.

  She hears something moving outside and she hoists the door and slams it closed with more force than is necessary.

  Bronwyn is sloping past on the other side of the garden. Alia bites her lip, looks once more at the shed, and follows her daughter into the house.

  *

  Rose awoke to her second morning in the Dean house late. She had watched the hours of the night before tick past, counting them off one by one by the fluorescent hands of the clock. It was getting near daybreak when she must have finally nodded off, and now it is ten o’clock.

  Mary will think she is so dreadfully lazy.

  Then a second thought strikes her and she sits bolt upright in the single bed. Connor is coming home today! She dresses quickly, pulling a pair of jeans and a thick jumper from the still unpacked case that Bronwyn had bought round. She drags a brush through her hair and ties it back before hurrying down the stairs.

  The house is quiet, no radio on, no television. Rose walks through the hallway, looking in at the lounge and the kitchen. The house is empty. Mary has left to collect Connor without her.

  A blinding panic builds in her and she stands in the kitchen. She is alone and even when Connor gets here she’s still going to be alone. Mary is going to freeze her out, she’s already started. She doesn’t want a Catholic woman taking away her precious son because Connor is all that Mary has.

  She looks at the photographs on the sideboard, all of Connor, marking every year of his life so far. She sees now what Bronwyn had been asking the other night. Where is everyone else, the grandparents or the friends or the cousins? There is nobody else in Mary’s life, and really she is no different to Rose’s mother. They are both angry, bitter women, twisted in their loneliness. Nobody else has telephoned this house or called round. Mary obviously does not encourage friendships. Rose wonders if her neighbours know anything about her and Connor. Do they think this is a Catholic family? Do they even notice Mary at all? They noticed all right the other night, when Connor lay on the cobbles bleeding from a gunshot wound. She recalls them crowding around the ambulance, but she doesn’t remember any of the people offering Mary a kind gesture or a word of comfort.

  And if this is the way of the world, and it’s not just Rose’s mother who is standoffish and cold, but it is actually a common occurrence, should she attempt reconciliation with her own mother? She’s never been apart from Kathleen, not really. Has she stayed away long enough to have frightened her mother? If she goes back home, right now, would she finally be greeted with open arms? Because she’s just coming to realise, that apart from Bronwyn and Connor, she really doesn’t have anyone else looking out for her. Pulling on her coat, she leaves the house and makes her way across town.

  There’s a strange smell emanating from inside her mother’s house, something sour and rotten. And as she lets herself in and stands in the hallway she wonders if it always carried this scent. She tried over the years to spend as little time as possible here. Throughout her childhood and youth she was always at Bronwyn’s where, although they had little money, Alia always managed to put a hot meal on the table at least once a day. There were only the two of them there, Bronwyn and her mother, and Rose spent those years in a warm fold, punctured only occasionally by stabs of jealousy. When the two friends got older and Bronwyn started going out with Danny, she tagged along with them sometimes, but Dan always made her a bit uncomfortable. She knew that he wanted Bronwyn to himself, and when he changed tact and got a bit over friendly, Rose stopped spending so much time in their company and began hiding out at the library. The library was okay. It was clean and tidy and she could lose an entire afternoon in there. And the library didn’t smell funny, not like this house. And it’s something else, this odour, it wasn’t always as bad as this. She nudges open the door to the living room. Kathleen is curled in a corner of the sofa, swaddled in a thick blanket. She is asleep and Rose sees the tell-tale almost empty bottle of gin on the carpet.

  Rose backs out of the room and closes the door quietly.

  There’s nothing for her here.

  *

  Connor is dressed and practicing on his crutches when Mary arrives to collect him. An odd look flits across his face when he sees that she is alone. Mary tilts her head to the side and studies him hard. Is he hopeful that the girl has gone for good? Or disappointed that Mary has come on her own?

  “The girl’s at home, love,” she says. “She’s still in bed by all accounts.”

  He glances at the clock, frowning, and Mary bites her lip against the words that she wants to say. That if Connor was her man she’d have damn well been here even if she hadn’t slept for two days straight. She can’t ostracise Connor though. She’s lucky he’s still at home, most men his age are married by now but she’s enjoyed him being
close, if he moved out… It doesn’t bear thinking about. But the girl can’t stay at their house forever, either. She couldn’t stand the thought of sharing her home indefinitely with her, and on a separate note, the longer she stays the more dangerous it becomes for all three of them. But if she brings this up and the girl moves out, Connor might follow her. And they couldn’t rent a house in Newry, or indeed even Northern Ireland in general. They would have to move away, far away, and then she would have lost the only thing she cares about in her life.

  Mary puffs her cheeks out. She’s going to have to handle this very carefully, and she’s going to have to try and get rid of the damn girl.

  “Ready?” she asks him, painting on a smile.

  “Yes, let’s go,” he replies, and walking slowly side by side, they make their way out of the hospital.

  “Do you like her, then?” he asks as they wait in the taxi rank.

  Mary shrugs. “I’ve not really seen her to form an opinion, I showed her to her bedroom and she’s pretty much stayed there. I cooked a nice lamb dinner last night but she wasn’t interested.”

  It’s a lie that she hopes doesn’t get her found out. She did cook a lamb dinner, but it was just some chops for herself. If Connor asks Rose about it, Mary will just say that she called up the stairs offering some to the girl, and the girl ignored her. Yes, that sounds plausible. “Maybe she’s lost her appetite,” Mary finishes, casting a sidelong look at her son.

  Connor frowns and looks displeased.

  Mary smiles to herself, she’s planted the seed.

  *

  “Do you know what was in that shed?”

  When Alia comes in Bronwyn is standing at the sink, washing her hands. She looks up at her mother.

  “Sorry?” she asks.

  Alia comes up behind her, watching as what looks like blood and mud swirls down the plug hole.

  “In the shed,” Alia says, her tone short and sharp. “Rifles, machine guns. The police took them all away.”