The Hunger Within

by J. M. Hewitt

Inside her bag the cans continue to clink together, mocking her almost as she tries to move on.

  *

  Rose conceals herself in Connor’s bedroom. She’s not in his bed, so it’s okay to be here, she figures. Connor’s not in here either, he’s outside the front of the house, sitting on the step, waiting for God knows what.

  He hasn’t mentioned anything about her father and she thinks maybe Mary didn’t tell him. Although someone will, if somebody told Mary then it seems likely he will hear about it, eventually. Idly she wonders what her mother is doing today. How does she feel now that the truth is out? Is she relieved, finally happy that she can stop pretending to love her daughter and not have to see her again? Rose thinks it is more likely Kathleen will never be happy again. She should have aborted Rose, gone to a back street doctor or made the crossing to England while she had the chance, thirty years ago she could have got rid of the problem and started over with a husband and gone on to have proper children. It explains the lack of family on Kathleen’s part, anyway. Her grandparent’s would have kicked Kathleen out, moved her cross country and disowned her.

  Rose shakes her head and looks out of the window again. Connor is standing now, slowly approaching the gate. Rose feels an itch on her forearm and scratches at it, absentmindedly. Where is Connor going now? And why is he outside in just a thin jumper on such a cold day?

  She sees his arm raised in greeting and she follows the direction in which he is looking in, sees her friend, Bronwyn, walking quickly down the street.

  There is a letter opener on Connor’s window sill and Rose picks it up, scraping now at the itch on her arm. Why is Bronwyn here? Mary won’t be pleased, Rose’s sure of that. Still she doesn’t move, instead she narrows her eyes and continues watching, unnoticed behind the net curtain.

  Bronwyn reaches the gate and Connor opens it. They are talking; Bronwyn holds up her bag and Connor nods, says something that causes Bronwyn to break out into a laugh. Rose scratches with the letter opener, harder now. It’s been ages since she’s seen Bronwyn laughing.

  Rose shifts position at the window, moving a couple of feet to get a better view. The two of them are serious now, their heads bent close together. Bronwyn’s eyes are downcast as she talks. Rose’s breath catches in her throat as Connor’s hand comes up and he strokes at Bronwyn’s arm. Then its round her shoulders in what seems to be a protective embrace, and slowly the pair make their way up to the house.

  Rose hears the front door close behind them.

  She puts the letter opener back where she found it. She doesn’t notice that the pointed end is covered in blood.

  Pulling down her sleeves and straightening her skirt, Rose knows she should go downstairs to meet her friend. Instead, she sits down on the end of the bed, and waits.

  *

  “Connor said you might come round,” said Mary as Bronwyn came through to the kitchen, followed by Connor. “I’ve not got much in but there’s some tea if you’re hungry.”

  “Oh, cheers.” Bronwyn casts a look at Connor and he smiles in return.

  Mary watches as they both take a seat at the table. The dinner is what she would call a ‘make-do’ meal using whatever is in the cupboards, but it’s not a bad one. There is ham, salad, some celery in a pint glass and new potatoes covered in butter.

  “I always think salads are a summer food,” says Mary as she carries three plates to the table. “But I’ve got an apple pie in the oven. We can warm ourselves with that after.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Mary sees a shadow at the bottom of the stairs and knows its Rose. The girl makes no move to come into the room, however, and as Mary moves around the table to get the cutlery out of the drawer, she closes the door that leads to the hall.

  “Um, is Rose not joining us?” Bronwyn asks, her back to the door, as she helps herself to a ladle full of potatoes.

  Mary shrugs and looks at Connor.

  “I’ll go and get her,” he offers.

  “No, you rest that leg of yours,” says Mary. “I’ll go.”

  Mary opens the door and slips out, noting that the shadow of Rose is no longer in the hallway. She walks upstairs, slowly and deliberately. The door to both Connor’s room and the spare room in which Rose sleeps are closed. Mary waits for a minute. She can hear nothing behind either door.

  She goes back downstairs and into the kitchen, gives Connor and Bronwyn a look of helplessness.

  Nothing is said. Connor looks downcast, Bronwyn shakes her head. Mary turns away and smiles to herself.

  The meal is a bit of a stilted affair and they eat in silence. After the plates are cleared away, (by Bronwyn, Mary notes with approval), the pie is bought out of the oven.

  “Would anyone care for a beer?” Bronwyn picks up her handbag and pulls out a pack.

  Mary has never been much of a drinker and she swallows her distaste at the sight of the young woman holding the pack of Guinness aloft. On the other hand, alcohol seems ideal for what she is about to try and talk her guest into doing. “Why not?” says Mary.

  She collects glasses, semi-aware that they would generally just drink from the can. But she has them now, and obediently they fill the half pint glasses.

  Mary waits until Bronwyn has finished her first. She tops it up and looks over to Connor.

  “Go and try to get Rose down here,” she instructs. “Her friend has come across town to see her, after all.”

  Connor obliges, forgoing his crutches and limping out of the room.

  “I wanted to speak to you alone,” says Mary as she refills her own wine glass. “Have you been to see your husband?”

  Bronwyn looks surprised. “No,” she replies. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  Mary takes a deep breath, knowing that Connor could be back any minute, she needs to be quick. “I’m not a Catholic, but it doesn’t mean I don’t keep up to date with what is going on in the world. There are many men, like your husband, in that prison and I heard that almost all of them have volunteered for the next hunger strikes.”

  “You think Danny would be involved?” Bronwyn laughs. “He wouldn’t... he’s not into anything like that, he prefers the action. Hunger strikes are too political for him.”

  The genuine sympathy that she feels surprises Mary. She suppresses it, thinks instead inwardly how foolish and naive Bronwyn is. Outwardly, she smiles and lays a hand on top of Bronwyn’s.

  “What do you think the attack on Connor was about? It’s all politics, it’s not personal.” She hears a door close upstairs and speeds up. “And that is all it is, a political view. He’s your husband, no matter what has been said or done. I think you should just visit him, just once. Who knows, seeing you might bring him out of having any foolish ideas of killing himself on a hunger strike.”

  The last bit was genius and Mary is pleased. She’s done what she can to keep her end of the bargain to get Bronwyn to go and visit her husband. She sneaks a sideways look at her. She appears deep in thought. Mary nods to herself and hopes she has done enough.

  Chapter 12

  February 22nd 1981

  There were more maggots this morning. The ones that came first, days ago, are flies now. I don’t know which ones are worse. The flies, I think. At least the maggots just stay where you fling them. The flies are enough to induce a mental breakdown, buzzing around all day and all night.

  I can hear the breakfast trays being removed. The guards hate coming down this block. The maggots and the flies and the excrement on the walls are too much for them. To my surprise, I’ve almost got used to the smell of shit and piss. A priest came around yesterday and spoke to us all. I’ve never seen a man try so hard not to vomit before. His face was puce with the effort of holding it all inside.

  “Visitor, Granger,” shouted one of the screws as he banged on my bars.

  I sit up and then stand, the cold and my situation all but forgotten. She’s here. Finally.

  I traipse along behind the guard, wrapping my blanket around me, responding
to the calls and greetings of my fellow prisoners. I stop at Sean’s cell, exchange a few words, until the screw barks back down the corridor.

  “I’ll send your visitor away, then, shall I?”

  Sean gestures at me to go, and I wink at him and stroll after the screw. You can’t hurry in here, you can’t make them think they have control. Every single thing you say or do has to be thought out in advance.

  We reach a door, one of the visiting rooms, and the screw silently opens it. I saunter in.

  My visitor is there.

  It’s Bronwyn.

  I walk around the room and come to a stop in front of her. I let her look at me, at the blanket and my lack of clothes. Even though I’ve got used to it I know she can smell my cell on me. Slowly her eyes travel from my bare feet, all the way up my body until her eyes lock onto mine.

  “For fuck’s sake,” she hisses.

  I smile, give her a bit of the old me, but inside I’m struggling. Now she’s here I don’t know what to say. Since I’ve been banged up I’ve had so many conversations with her in my head. Now that she sits in front of me, my speech has deserted me.

  “You look well,” I say, as I take my seat. Even though it’s a lie; she looks tired and too skinny. Bronwyn was never skinny. She was muscled with an athlete’s build. She was strong and solid but always feminine. And it crosses my mind that this is the first time I’ve properly looked at her in years.

  “You look like shit, and you smell like it too.”

  In spite of her words I grin again. My wife is back.

  “So, you’re doing it then?”

  “Yes, I am.” I’m proud and I make sure she knows it.

  “Jesus Christ, Dan, I didn’t think even you would be so stupid.”

  Her tone and her words anger me and I lean forward, I put my face right up to hers.

  “It’s not stupid, don’t you ever call me stupid.”

  She doesn’t recoil from me, and I applaud her for that. I would have.

  She doesn’t say anything else. She slumps in her chair and looks down at the floor.

  “What did you come for, Bron?” I ask her, gently this time.

  She shrugs her shoulders, suddenly twenty years younger.

  I can see tears are pooling in her eyes and I frown. A little of what I used to feel breathes inside me and I’m asking myself, what happened? How did I – we – get here? And I can’t allow myself to reminisce about years gone by. I’ve got a different goal now, I’ve got a job to do, an important one, and my people are now those men who sit in their cells behind me. They are my family now.

  “I went to the forest the other day,” she says, and looks up at me. “You know, where we used to go when we first got the house.”

  I can’t read her expression, not through her tears.

  “I wanted to collect some stones and rocks, I wanted something solid to commemorate Emma, and I had to get stones because I haven’t got anything else solid in my life. Not anymore.”

  I scratch my belly underneath the itchy blanket. My skin seems to have got so much more sensitive since I’ve not bathed.

  “Who the fuck is Emma?” I ask. I’m lost, I don’t remember any of her friends who are called Emma. Not that I know many of them, she never seems to have any mates, only the irritating Rose constantly hanging around.

  “Emma was our baby,” she says, looking me straight in the eye. “I lost a baby, Danny.”

  Her tears have stopped, which is one good thing. I don’t know how she wants me to respond and it’s obvious that she expects a response.

  I scratch again, my back this time, and wonder absentmindedly if I’ve got one of the damn maggots stuck to me.

  “Are you going to say anything?” Her voice goes up a notch and she’s almost shrill.

  I smile, I shrug, I answer her honestly. “I don’t... what do you want me to say, Bron?”

  She stands up and walks behind me, out of view. I wait for her to speak, because if I know her she’s got plenty more to say. There’s a small noise, I swing around in my chair.

  The room is empty.

  My wife has gone.

  *

  Bronwyn holds her tears in check all the way home on the bus. She stares out of the window at the rolling countryside and looks at none of the other passengers. She thinks of the couple of tins of Guinness that she bought home from Mary’s and closes her eyes at the thought of the taste. She will open it as soon as she gets home. She will not have any lunch or dinner and if she finishes off the beer she will go out and get more.

  The plan helps, knowing what she will be doing makes the bus journey a little easier. At the bus stop she gets off, hurrying now towards Kidds Road. Now she has made a plan that will make her forget about everything, she can’t wait to put it into action.

  When she opens the door she flings her bag onto the carpet and makes for the kitchen. To her horror, Alia is there, and she has opened one of the cans of beer.

  “What are you doing?” Bronwyn shouts, before she can stop herself.

  “Calm down, Bronwyn!” Her mother’s volume matches her own.

  Bronwyn grabs the can and holds it close to her chest. “It’s mine!”

  She hears her words and how childish they sound, but really, this beer, it was all that was keeping her going, all the way home, the thought of getting good and blotted so she wouldn’t have to think of Danny’s words, how callous he was, how he didn’t even care about Emma.

  She hears a gasp, realises that it came from her, from somewhere deep within and she’s breathing in, gasping, until she can’t hold it anymore and a scream comes out of her, wracking her body until her legs don’t work and she goes down into a kneeling position right there, on the kitchen floor, losing all power in her limbs, except the ability to hold onto the can of Guinness, still clamped against her breasts.

  *

  Alia had known that Bronwyn was getting somewhere close to breaking point, but she hadn’t expected the scene that is playing out before her. For a horrible moment she thinks about getting up and leaving, because she’s never seen Bronwyn like this, so out of control, so emotional. But to leave would mean stepping over her daughter’s crumpled body, and she couldn’t do that to anyone, let alone her own flesh and blood.

  Still she doesn’t move, one hand is still clasping her glass as she stares down at Bronwyn. In between the sobs she makes out a single word.

  “Ma...,”

  It galvanises her into action, and she puts the glass on the table, tips forward off her chair and lands on her knees next to Bronwyn.

  Yes, I’m a mother, this is my girl, my only child, thinks Alia. But this child has never needed me, not since she learned how to walk, so forgive me if my reactions are slow. And, oh my God, but it’s so good to be needed, finally, at last...

  Later they talk about it, over a bottle of wine that Alia found buried in the back of the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink and which Bronwyn had missed. They go through to the living room and Alia, still with Bronwyn in her arms, switches on the electric fire. They sink onto the sofa, sip at their wine, and eventually Bronwyn begins to talk, about Danny mostly. Alia listens without interrupting, nodding occasionally, even when Bronwyn’s sentences run into one another and don’t make any sense. She hears a lot about Emma, whoever she is, and interjects about how everyone knows that she grassed on Danny, punctuated with crying jags and swear words.

  “I waited all your life for you to need me,” Alia says, a little drunk now. “You never did, today is the first time you have ever needed me like that.”

  She watches for Bronwyn’s reaction. Bronwyn shakes her head and raises her hands, palms up. “I never really needed anything, ma. Everything was always manageable, until recently.”

  Manageable, not okay, Alia, even though she’s not sober, notices the word her daughter chooses to use.

  Bronwyn starts up again, omitting nothing; about how over the years Dan has been getting in deeper and deeper, staying out later and later
, until they barely see each other and don’t talk.

  “He doesn’t need me, ma,” Bronwyn says, and her voice breaks Alia’s heart. “He didn’t want to hear about Emma either, you know he’s on the protests?”

  Alia puts her hand to her mouth, remembering how bad it had got last winter. Something else pokes at her through the alcohol haze. “You keep talking about... Emma?”

  Bronwyn smiles, almost looks happy for a second. “I named her Emma, ma.”

  Alia nods, says nothing in reply, but pulls Bronwyn close to her. “Do you want to come and stay with me for a bit?”

  Bronwyn pulls away and shakes her head no. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” She looks down, almost shyly, and Alia tugs at her hand.

  “What?”

  Bronwyn looks up at her mother, her eyes wide and almost hopeful. “I thought I might start running again, I miss it, you know?”

  “I don’t think it’ll solve anything, you’re just running away from your problems, soft girl.”

  Bronwyn shrugs. “Better than sitting staring at them in the bottom of a glass.”

  As Alia goes to leave, she feels a little better. Sometimes things just have to come to a head, and today, they did.

  “See you, ma,” says Bronwyn. “Thank you... for everything.”

  And as Alia walks back to her own house, she smiles, suddenly, as she realises something. Bronwyn has called her ‘ma’ more times in a few hours today than she has in the last decade.

  *

  You need to make an effort.

  You need to make an effort.

  Connor’s words to Rose of the night before play in her head, over and over.

  After she had seen Bronwyn arrive she had taken a moment to gather herself before going downstairs. At the time she hadn’t known why she would need to take that time, after all, Bronwyn was her lifelong best friend. She hadn’t thought too much about it, just sat down on the bed for a moment to prepare herself. She could hear them in the kitchen when she went down and she hovered in the gloom of the hallway. They hadn’t seen her, though she could see Mary moving around in the kitchen. She saw Mary get three plates out and carry them across the room, and as she had passed the open door she had nudged it closed.