by Martha Long
‘I said nothing, just listened. Me heart was breakin. The only thing we had te worry us then was hunger, an where we were goin te sleep tha night. But, yeah, I didn’t like te see me mammy always talkin te herself an lookin sick wit all the worry. But it was still OK, we was always the happier fer it when we got somethin te eat or found a place te sleep. Yeah, then me ma would laugh an be happy. Oh, I miss them times.
‘“Do ye think, young one, ye might find it in yer heart te not think too bad a me? Could ye forgive me?” he suddenly whispered, rubbin his fist an lookin at me wit a pain in his eyes, just like the one me ma gets when she used te be walkin the streets frettin. I said nothin, just stared at him, not knowin wha te answer. I didn’t want te be tellin him a lie.
‘He stared at me, waitin, then saw wha I was thinkin and said, “If it’s any way consolation to ye, I paid a hard price too fer me bad ways. I only ever wanted the best fer yer mammy an youse, but the fuckin bastards in me head got the better a me. Them an them bastardin Christian Brothers tha brought me up an trained me! They turned me out a walkin fuckin bastard! I hated every minute of me life from the day I was born,” he said slowly, grittin his teeth.’
I listened, watching her, not able to start my mind thinking. What? He had taken the child and walked her through the dark hidden caves of his mind, somehow giving her glimpses of his soul, travelling her back down through the days of his life as I sat talking to him. All the time he was with me through the child.
‘Yeah! Tha’s it,’ she said, reading my thoughts. ‘He wants ye te understand now, so ye will be happy an he’ll be at peace. So do I, Martha. I do be cold an lonely, an I don’t like livin in the dark an cryin wit no one te take me. You were me a long time ago. Now I’m just nobody any more. I never got te be happy. I thought when I got big, I’d be you, an I’d be somebody an people would love me, but you never even liked me! You grew up without me, an ye left me behind cos I wasn’t lovely! I waited, hopin, but ye never came. Ye didn’t want te know me, an I can tell tha cos I’m lookin inside you now,’ she whispered, letting the tears stream down her cheeks.
Suddenly I could feel my heart beginning to break, but I couldn’t put my hand out to her. She was right! I couldn’t get near enough to love her. She had seen too much suffering. I couldn’t bear the pain in her. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I muttered, seeing the tears crash down her cheeks and flood into her filthy, black, bony little neck. I watched them sitting on her throat then mingle in the dirt, softening from the hot wet tears. They left a pool of dirty water showing a speck of white porcelain skin; it was hidden underneath. My heart broke and my chest suddenly convulsed. Fat drops of tears burst out and streamed down my cheeks, then landed in my throat just as hers did.
She suddenly lifted her head up to me, coming very close. ‘Martha! Don’t let him go an take me wit him. He doesn’t want tha. Ye have te listen, hear wha he’s sayin. If ye don’t do tha, then you’ll never get a day’s peace. Somethin will always be missin! He robbed me, an you’ll spend the rest a yer days draggin them aul torments wit ye. Yeah, we were your torments, Jackser an me, but we all need te get peace now. If you manage, Martha, te let go a him in yer heart, then it will start te come right, but ye have te do it very soon.’
I listened to the little voice of truth as it all became suddenly clear, so very clear. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! I thought, shaking my head at her in amazement. ‘How did you work all that out, little one?’ I said, astonished at her insight.
‘I can hear it comin from you, but ye’re not listenin!’ she snapped, beginning to get fed up with my stupidity.
‘How old are you, little Martha?’ I whispered, suddenly leaning in to make eye contact, wondering at her wisdom, yet understanding nothing of my own mind.
‘I’m six! Me ma says I’m six! An I think I know more than you!’ she said, looking at me with the eyes spitting fire, raging I couldn’t or wouldn’t help her. Yet beyond that burning was a terrible sadness. She was such a lonely little girl, so terribly alone and vulnerable. But I turned away from her. I can’t carry her pain any more.
‘I have to go, little one. I’m tired,’ I said, suddenly getting up and walking out. I looked back at the door, seeing her staring after me with the mouth open and the eyes staring in confusion, then she dropped her head to one side, hoping I didn’t mean I was really going to leave her. She looked so small and frail and so totally alone. But I couldn’t think any more with her. Enough, leave me be. I closed my eyes then slowly let them rest on the armchair again. It was now empty, no little Martha. She was gone to do her haunting, back to the old streets of Dublin where I once roamed.
Just before I turned away I heard a little voice whisper, ‘I’ll be waitin for ye, Martha. Ye know where te find me. Ye only have te come an search for me along the back streets a Dublin. Tha’s where me ghost still wanders.’
17
I looked over at Jackser, seeing he was sweating again. I stood up and reached for the bowl, testing the water. It’s lukewarm. Maybe it might be better if I get fresh cold water. No, I don’t want to give him a worse chill.
I looked at his face, seeing how grey he was. Poor Jackser, I hope you don’t know how much you are suffering; it is bloody horrendous. I leant over him, listening to the screams of his lungs as they struggled to take in air. My stomach twisted and my face tightened with the tension and pain of seeing him going through this, second by second. Oh, Jesus! I can’t bear to see a human being suffer like that. No one should have to go through this. ‘Fucking hell!’ I muttered, feeling like I was beginning to lose my rag. If he was a dog, they would put him out of his misery straight away! There must be something they can do for him. Where’s that nurse? I’m going to get that fucking doctor down here. This is unmerciful!
I whipped back the curtain, feeling a slight drop in the temperature. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ I sighed, pulling it out of the way. An old man sitting in the bed opposite lifted his face to look over. I turned around and pulled the curtain again, leaving Jackser shaded from the blazing sun but now getting the steam from his own body heat.
‘It’s like a furnace in there,’ I said.
‘Aye! I’d say it is all right,’ he said, nodding his head with the thin bits of grey hair still hanging on.
‘It’s so hot in here,’ I puffed, shaking the week-old shirt stuck to me damp skin. I’m going to need a trowel to scrape the filth off me, I thought, brushing back the hair sticking to my face. Every bit of me burned and ached with tiredness.
‘Oh! It’s like a Turkish bath in this place,’ he said, stretching out his legs, trying to cool them, letting the feet sit on top of the blankets. He had them curled down at the bottom, trying to give himself an airing.
‘It’s a wonder they don’t bring in a cooling fan, one of them things on wheels,’ I said, looking at him.
‘That’d be an idea,’ he said.
‘Maybe that’s a good idea,’ I muttered. ‘I’ll ask one of the nurses. Jackser could do with it, maybe put it next to him.’
‘How is the poor aul unfortunate doin? Ahh! Not good! Not good at all. Jesus! He’s suffering something terrible. You wonder how it can go on so long, and he still managing to keep going!’ he shook his head, thinking about it, looking pained. ‘Oh, it’s hard pain coming inta the world, an it can be even harder tryin te get out of it,’ he said, shaking his head at me, looking in the direction of Jackser. ‘I knew him, ye know!’
‘Did you?’ I said, feeling me heart quicken. It was like meeting someone from my own past, a connection with my childhood.
‘Oh, indeed I did. He used te hang around wit all tha crowd, the ones wit the interest in the horses. They all had somethin te do wit them one way or the other.’
‘Really?’ I said, wanting to hear about Jackser, getting a picture of when he was young.
‘Oh, yeah! Indeed, I knew them all. There used te be him an Smelly Murphy!’
‘Why did you call him that?’ I said, laughing.
<
br /> ‘Ah, who knows? Names stick from when ye’re very young. No one ever knows where they came outa. But if I was te guess, I would say he probably farted or did somethin te do wit tha line of it.
‘Anyway, there was another fella be the name a Squeaky, an Mac the Knife …’
‘Why did they call him that?’ I said.
‘Oh! I remember tha one all right,’ he said, raising the eyebrows, letting them land in the air, then turning his head away in disgust. Then he turned back to me, talking. ‘He was very handy wit a knife! His father was a butcher. But when he was a Chiseller, ye know, only a lad, his ma got herself an ice-cream stand. She was very handy like tha, ye know. Always on the lookout for makin an extra few bob. Anyways,’ he said, drawing in his breath and sitting himself back for comfort, wanting to tell me the story. ‘Now ye see, this ice-cream stand came together wit a bicycle. Ye had te pedal the thing! So nobody better fer the job than the Chiseller! So off he sets, him on the bike, headin straight for the Phoenix Park, where the mammy told him tha’s the best place fer him te pick up the crowds. It was durin the holidays – oh, lovely weather like we’re gettin at the minute, ye see?’ he said, bringing the head over to me, leaning his chin on the hand and pausing his breath, making sure I’m following him.
‘Yeah, yeah! Go on!’ I said, listening all intent with my eyes feasted on him.
‘Well! Tha was grand, an off he set. Now natural like, because of wha was in it, all the ice cream, well, the whole neighbourhood a kids, mostly young fellas, his pals, decided te trek along for the outin an give Chiseller a hand. All was goin grand, the young fella was doin a roarin trade, until, it was yer very man over there! He was only outa Artane, sixteen he was,’ the man said, pointing his finger and landing it in the air, keeping it pointed in Jackser’s direction.
‘What, Jackser! He was there?’
‘Oh, yeah! Well, when Chiseller, that’s wha he was called, even though be now he was around the sixteen mark, too. No longer a Chiseller! But these things stick, ye know?’
‘Oh, yeah, you get a nickname for life when you grow up in a small place,’ I said, remembering all that from living in places around the city centre.
‘Anyway!’ the man continued, getting impatient with me after interrupting. ‘Chiseller was after cuttin a shillin wafer. Now tha was a big one. You’d nearly get the whole block a ice cream fer the price a tha! But tha was the charge from Chiseller. “Ye can pay up or fuck up!” Chiseller woulda told ye … Excuse me language!’ he said. ‘But anyway, this big lump of ice cream, stuck between two slices a thin wafer, landed down on the little counter. Well!’ The old man paused, slowly taking in a breath. ‘If yer man over there didn’t up an make a sudden move. Quick as a flash he was, made a grab for the ice cream. Oh, he was quick all right! But be Jaysus! Chiseller was even quicker! Like greased lighting he was wit tha knife. Down he brought the huge butcher’s knife, one a his father’s, smack on the counter, on top a his fingers over there. Missin him be a hair’s breadth! Only because he got the hand back in time, he woulda be known now as “Fingers”, cos he wouldn’t a had any! Not Snuffler, as we used te call him.’
‘Snuffler? Is that what he was called?’ I said, with the eyes standing outa me head.
‘Oh, yeah!’
‘Why did you call him that?’
‘Ah, he was always snufflin. It was just an aul habit a his.’
‘Yeah, he was,’ I said, remembering all his habits. He had the same ones – first the snuffling when you got his interest in something, or he was about to do something. Then came the arm lifting inta the air, then the bending, looking like he was examining the ground. When he was satisfied he was now snuffled enough, the arm got a good shaking, swinging it around, and the back got a bit of exercise all at the same time! Then he was off, down to do the business at hand.
I laughed, remembering back to them times, a feeling of bittersweet memories filling my belly and my chest – loss for the little child I once was. Yet, joy for the hope and the dreams and the times back then of being a child. I let the memory go, taking in a sigh, letting the smile on my face fade away, saying, ‘So, what did they call you?’
‘Ah, go on! I’m not tellin ye tha!’ he said, shaking his head and looking away then back with a half-smile half mixed with a look of disgust on his face.
I waited as he took in a breath, letting it out in a snort. ‘Canary!’ he said, snorting it out on a breath.
‘Canary?’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘Well ye might ask. I had yella hair!’
‘Yellow?’
‘Yeah! It was a cross between white an red, but neither a them.’
‘It was gold!’ I said.
‘Well, lighter, yella!’
‘Gawd! You must have been a brute of a handsome man,’ I laughed, looking at the faded sky-blue eyes now a bit bloodshot.
‘Yeah! Me mother was from a little village in France. Me father met her during the First World War, when he was fightin there. He stayed wit the family after the war just ended. He was in no hurry te get back here te his poor mother waitin on him. She didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. He enlisted when he was only seventeen, without tellin her. Then the deed was done, he arrived home in the uniform, an off he went.
‘It was durin the big rush! When Mister what’s his name? Me memory is not as good as it was,’ he said, twisting his baldy eyebrows, trying to think.
‘Lord Kitchener,’ I said, guessing that’s what he was going to say.
‘Yeah! Tha’s him, the very man. Anyway! Me father used te tell us stories about how they all rushed down an enlisted, him an the pals. But tha was the last anyone ever seen a them again, so me father used te say, God rest him,’ he said sadly, letting his eyes stare as he thought about his long-gone father. ‘Anyway, he wasn’t satisfied until he got wha he wanted. He brought me mother, God rest her an be good te her, back wit him te Dublin an married her here. They set up home in a little place his mother, me granny, got them. That’s how I know Jackser. His family – his mother an mine – were neighbours. We lived next te each other down the lane in Sheriff Street. Everyone knew everyone else. Ye couldn’t have a good fart without everyone hearin an gettin te know about it.
‘But it was grand in them days. It was easy livin for the childre in the long summer days an nights. Jaysus! We would be out playin on them streets from mornin till dusk! Wit no harm ever comin te us. An harmless fun we got up to! We made our own enjoyment. We were so easily pleased,’ he said, looking happy and sad, going back down the memory to the days of his childhood.
I said nothing, just smiled with him, going back with him, getting a sense through him of similar days. Golden, warm and even hot sunny days with gangs of children. Girls, they always played together. They were either chasing each other or swinging outa lamp posts with a rope tied to the top and a noose at the bottom to sit your arse in. Then lash out with the foot at the lamp post and off ye flew, flying in and out, twirling like mad. Seeing how many you could get before you came to a sudden stop when your head smashed into the heavy metal lamp post. Yeah! One too many twirls and you didn’t get your foot lashed against the lamp post in time to brake! Jaysus, I can still see the stars, with me head swinging from that! But that was a happy memory before we met Jackser, so I couldn’t have been even six years old yet!
‘It was lovely talking to you,’ I whispered, coming back to me senses and stirring meself. ‘I better get moving.’
‘Ah, yeah! Nice talkin te you too,’ he said, fixing his pyjama legs, then nodding at me.
‘I better see if I can get something to cool down Jackser,’ I whispered, looking back at him with my body out the door, leaving my head still stuck inside. ‘That heat in there is not helping him any,’ I muttered, looking pained as I shook me head.
‘Yeah! Tha would be a wise move, all right. Go on,’ he nodded, ‘see if ye can get him something. Jaysus Christ! He must be baked over there behind them aul curtains,’ he said, throwing the head at me to
get moving.
18
‘Now, Jackser, is that better for you?’ I muttered to him as I dried his face and neck with the clean towel, then wrung out the cloth. ‘We have a bit of comfort,’ I said, looking over at the big fan blowing out lovely cool air. It was sitting in the corner, right next to Jackser. I sat down and leant meself into the bed, holding his hand, then rested me head down on my left my arm, laying it flat out on the bed.
‘Martha! Martha, are ye asleep?’
I opened my eyes, lifting me head looking straight up into the ma.
‘Wha’s happenin?’ she whispered, looking from me to Jackser.
I looked up at him, seeing him breathing faster. I slowly sat up straight, trying to get me bearings. ‘I must have conked out,’ I said, feeling me head and eyeballs like someone had stuffed them inside a mangle. My nose and chest felt stuffed and dry. I’m dehydrated, I thought, I better get something to drink. ‘Ma, how are you? What time is it?’
‘Oh, I couldn’t get in any earlier,’ she said, sitting herself in the chair and looking from me to Jackser. ‘How is he?’ she said, letting her face twist with worry and her eyes stare at him, looking like she was going to cry or start shouting.
I said nothing for a minute, knowing she could see it for herself. It’s better she reach her own conclusions.
‘Is he bad?’ she said, looking at me, knowing what she saw.
I took in air slowly through my nose, letting my eyes fix on Jackser. I shook my head. ‘He’s not good, Ma. He’s having an awful hard time of it.’
‘Is he?’ she said, letting her voice go up in the air like it was news to her.
‘Yeah! You can see there for yourself.’
‘Yeah,’ she said turning her head to the door, then looking back at me. ‘Where is she? Why won’t she come in?’ me ma said, looking back at the door again.
