Is there anything else, Garda Lawless? Ma asked him when the giggling simmered down, knowing full-well he was dying to stick around, the dressing gown practically falling off her. By now, Lawless cared little about defaced walls, Rich Hill could fall off the end of the world if it meant he could come sniffing the breeze that was threatening to once and for all open the belt on Ma’s dressing gown.
Eventually he put his hat back on, about-turned and was on his way, but not before he made sure to let Ma know he was there for her if she needed anything, and he meant anything, and not to be shy about calling him up, at any time, he’d be only too happy to drop everything he was doing and dash to her assistance. And I could see the winking eyes on him, oh yes, he thought he was next in line for something very special. Well, think again, Lawless.
Ma closed the door and stepped back inside, shaking her empty glass as though wondering what had happened to the tall drink in it a few minutes ago. And I was thinking to myself, that’s some show you just put on, Ma. If ever I get around to annihilating everybody in this town and am hauled in front of the bastard judge Deeley and anybody else who wants to find out exactly what was going on inside my mind, I am going to get them to direct all their questions to you, Ma. Ask her, I’ll say, pointing you out, she’ll put on a fine spectacle. The only part I didn’t like was bat-ear Devine saying she felt sorry for me. I didn’t need any sympathy. Not from her. Not from anyone.
What an arse! I heard Ma say to the closed door, and she made some crack about the bandy legs on cop Lawless stepping up to our door, accusing her boy of vandalism and harassment.
Ah, there you are still, she said, looking up the stairs at me. Good boy. You know what I think I am going to do today?
No.
I think I’m going to smash the place up. You know. Cut loose a little. Take out my frustrations. By the way, before I start, what exactly had you in mind messing about at Devine’s house?
She stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up, leaning against the door, her fingers drumming the hallway wall, waiting for an answer out of me. I could tell she would wait until doomsday if she had to.
I wanted to see Mario, I said.
Oh, it’s Mario, is it? And what did you want to see him for?
I wanted to ask him something.
Oh yes. And what would that be? You better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking.
I said nothing to that and she stood there, her hand still drumming, trying to figure out a way inside my thoughts.
Anything’s possible, isn’t it? I said next.
Mario Devine! Eh, let me have a little think. No. It is not possible. And what’s all this about graffiti? You better not be saying awful things about me on these Marrakech walls.
It was just a bit of fun.
A bit of fun. Yes. I like fun, too.
I didn’t mean anything by it.
Of course you didn’t.
She started to ask another question, but for some reason she lost interest as soon as she began.
And for a minute, quiet and uncertain, she stood there at the bottom of the stairs, still as stones. It was hard to know if she wanted more of a response out of me or if she was going to forget about the whole thing. I was about to offer up some more about what I’d been up to, anything to break this eerie quiet between us, when she was on the move again, swaying from side to side, giving me and the place in general her don’t-you-know-anything look, letting all about her know she had a couple of hundred lumps she wanted to knock out of everything including maybe me, and she must have been itching to get started because by the time I hauled myself fully downstairs she was already smashing up the place.
What’s wrong, Ma? I asked, following her into the kitchen, and she marched to the window, lifted up the potted plant and flung it. I had to duck out of the way, but luckily her throw arm wasn’t very strong and the pot bounced off the wall and landed harmlessly on the floor, some clay spilling out of it the only damage done. She thought better of having another go. Instead, she picked up the eternity candle she’d bought ages ago to bring some calm into the house and flung it in the same direction. This time she fared out better. The eternity candle smashed and pieces of glass and bits of candle sprayed everywhere. She wasn’t finished yet. She yanked out a drawer of odd knives and forks and let it drop to the ground. She hopped a couple of cooking pots off the kitchen wall. Cups, glasses, plates and bowls quickly followed. Then she marched back into the sitting room where she picked up one of the candlesticks from the mantelpiece and swiped at framed photographs of herself as a young girl, and one of her holding me as a baba. The mantelpiece clock was sent tumbling to the ground. Her tobacco pouch. A box of matches. The second candlestick. When there was nothing left on the mantelpiece she scanned the rest of the sitting room, and hurled the candlestick at the television. Then she picked up one of the photographs – the one of her holding me as a baba – pulled the frame apart, and tore the photograph in two. She looked around her again, but she was losing energy now, and after an out-of-breath couple of minutes she let the torn-up photograph drop to the ground. It was some show.
OK, she said, putting out her arm to lean against a wall, panting. You are now receiving a warning: go near Devine’s house again and I am going to have you thrown into a septic tank. Are we understanding each other? I nodded. She had to wait to get her breath back before she could get this complete mouthful out, but I could tell she wasn’t that interested in hearing a thing out of me. Listen to this, pipsqueak, she said, and it seemed another person had stepped into Ma’s skin, a demon of a person at that, whose voice I barely recognized, and whatever it was this voice had to say, it was going to get said only once, and if I so much as dreamt about presenting myself in front of Mrs Mario Devine ever again I’d better get ready to spend the rest of my life without arms and legs and a whole bunch of inside parts. I will dropkick you into the Swamp, she said. I will hop your head off the roadside kerb, she said. I will stab you in the spleen with this, she said, picking up a shard of glass. Have you got that? she screamed at me. A nod of your daft noggin will do. Well?
I nodded my daft noggin.
Good boy, she said, and kneeling down in front of me, with both hands she gripped either side of my face and squeezed for all she was worth. Then she grabbed her vodka bottle and tobacco pouch, stormed out of the room, and stomped upstairs and slammed the bedroom door after her. That suited me fine. It was just me and the shard of glass.
THE NEXT HAPPY DAY
Ma kept a hurley stick in the press beside the cooker. A photograph of Marlon Brando and two bottles of wine, one empty, one full. I was thinking about the first time I’d seen the photograph, how I’d made a fast grab for it and then went running to her. Is this Da? I said and, oh boy, did that set her off. You should have seen her. Bent over in half, out of breath, red in the face, and all the time this hysterical laughter coming out of her, the pointing finger on her going from me to the photograph I was still clutching. Two hours later she was still laughing. I didn’t know a person had so much laughter inside them. I felt like a fool asking the question, made sure I gave Marlon Brando my dagger look and from that point on set myself the task of not asking Ma questions about photographs of men kept in kitchen presses. What’s with the bottles of wine? I asked her when she was normal again. The empty one, I drank two hours after giving birth to you, she told me. The full one, I’m saving for the next happy day in my life.
The next happy day in my life.
That might be her birthday. She was going to be thirty in a few weeks. Or thirty-one. I wasn’t fully sure, and the mood she was in right now I knew better than to ask. I wrote a fast list of things I thought she could do with. A lead cake. Some sods of turf with candles. Cleaning products and a six-pack of Dettol. Happy Birthday, Ma, I’d tell her, handing over the bucket and mop, may the best of your past be the worst of your future. Like hell I put down those things. My noggin wasn’t that daft.
Ask the girl. Her kno
w-it-all head would come up with something. She’d point me to the shapeliest high-fashion dress, the rarest pearl necklace, the most sought-after perfume, the best-tasting chocolates this side of those Russian Steppes. Wait a minute. Her ma was gone. What would she know about it? Ah. No use getting into a flap about it just now. I still had time to think of something.
First things first, though. I took one look about the place and knew there was one thing that could be done.
Tidy up.
After her smash-up it was the least I could do. Get back in her good books. Make myself useful. Essential even. Let her know that chucking me into a septic tank was the last thing she should be at.
As best I could, I bent the candlesticks back into shape and gathered up the soil that had spilled from the flower pot. Had a go at gluing the eternity candle back together. Even tried to patch up the torn photograph, put it back inside the damaged frame. It was while at this that I noticed the pile of cans and bottles that had been steadily accumulating and I grabbed a bin bag and cleared them all out of sight. I picked rollie-ends off the carpet floor, matches out of holes in the sofa, scratched away at burn marks. Between the folds in the sofa I pulled out socks, dirty tissues, some copper coins, a banana skin, an ashtray, part of an old atlas and a pair of underpants that definitely did not belong to me or Ma.
Asia and Africa were missing from the atlas, and more or less all of North and South America, which didn’t leave much else of the world to choose from. But there was a good portion of Europe still intact, including two fair-size pages of the Mediterranean Sea with Greece and so many islands that no wonder the girl couldn’t find the one she was looking for.
Once my work in the sitting room was done I hauled myself as far as the upstairs bathroom. A pyramid of knickers and bras greeted me. Glittery singlets and short skirts and other skimpy things with see-through sections, whether the holes had appeared over time or were there to begin with was hard to tell. I gathered the colourful pile and crammed them all into a clothes basket that had seen better days. Then I grabbed a towel and went at the sink and bath. From around the rim and plugholes collected several wigs’ worth of hair. Toothpaste stains and eyeliner and blobs of makeup. Put the lids back on perfumes, moisturizers, creams, and lots of other stuff that kept her looking the way she did. Threw out dirty shampoo bottles, emptied mouldy glasses. With a page of newspaper cleaned the mirror until it was clearer than air.
After the bathroom I took myself back downstairs and spent some time with the kitchen sink. Washed dishes, cups, plates, spoons, forks and pots. Swept the floor, polished tiles, scrubbed the grimy cooker. I had to get down on my knees, crawl into corners, gather all the broken glass, cup handles, bits of smashed plates. Then I opened up the food presses. Inside was heaving with activity. A gang of ants having a great time feasting on a ripped-open sugar bag. Three or four wasps pigging out deep inside a lidless jam jar. Teabags sprouting fur. I pulled out shrivelled-up cabbage leaves, mouldy apples, a soggy box of eggs. Spotted an intact Mars bar and pocketed it to keep it out of harm’s way. I grabbed a spatula and thought about massacring a troop of dancing daddy-long-legs. With my fist squashing into goo a handful of blue-arse flies. But I let them all buzz and dance about the place, somehow managed to shoo them into the back yard.
In the yard I spotted a rat and chased it round the walls. With a rusty nail thought about skewering the worms and scalping snails, pressing between thumb and finger the slimy flesh that remained. But I could think of better ways to use the nail and slipped it in my pocket alongside the Mars bar. When I wasn’t looking, a squadron of black beetles decided the coast was clear and made a break for a crack in the mossy wall, but the coast was anything but clear and soon they were skittering here, there and everywhere, their ranks a scattering chaos fearful of being levelled into a tarry mess. I lifted up loose rocks and thought long and hard about using them on woodlice thinking they could hide forever from the world. I could’ve bludgeoned a quarry of earwigs, made dust out of a nest of caterpillars. An army of ants scurried helplessly for the ragged hills in the wild garden. And, at last, I cornered the rat and with the spatula raised high, loomed over the skin-and-bone rodent, all set to bash it into a beetroot-coloured pulp. Before cutting loose I glanced at the wild garden and thought: the council men faffing about the Swamp are right. This is thirsty work. And when I looked again the rat had disappeared.
By the time I was done and rested, Ma had reappeared. She made straight for the fridge, took a look for more booze, made herself comfortable on the patchy sofa.
Look, Ma, I said, with my arms making a sweep of the room.
Look at what.
Notice anything different.
No.
Ah, I’d say you do. Go on. Take a guess. First thing that comes to you.
We’ve won the lotto.
No.
You’ve changed your hairstyle.
Not that either.
Well, whatever it is, break it to me gently.
I’ve tidied up, Ma. The place is spotless.
Oh, you’ve tidied up, she said, nodding vaguely. Good boy.
I did the living room.
Oh, my.
The kitchen is as good as new.
Isn’t that something.
And I cleared the yard.
What would I do without you?
By now she had spread herself on the sofa, was reaching for her glass and tobacco pouch.
Here, let me get those for you, I said, lunging to her assistance. And I can turn on the TV. There might be an afternoon movie for you. An episode of Tony Soprano. That’s it, make yourself comfortable.
She stayed on the sofa, staring at the pink TV. From time to time I refilled her glass, made sure her tobacco was close by, checked the fridge for ice. There was no sign of Tony Soprano, but soon one of those old gangster films came on. A lad with frightening eyes and a wide ugly mouth was giving someone his marching orders. Get out of town by tomorrow, he snarled, pointing his tommy gun, his wide ugly mouth getting wider and uglier. Otherwise you’ll be leaving in a pine box. Next thing, all hell was breaking loose on the mobster streets, machine-gun fire lighting up the dark-of-night screen, sirens blaring. She wasn’t in the least bit interested. A pig could’ve come flying through the window. A bouncing bomb could’ve landed on top of the house. I could’ve poured petrol over the television, the sofa, the person spread across it. I could’ve flicked a lit match, cut loose with a blow torch. She wouldn’t so much as bat an eyelid.
A penny for your thoughts, I said to her, fed up now with all this silence.
Ha! Don’t make me laugh.
OK, then. What about a euro?
It’ll cost you more than that.
You want to know what I was thinking?
Not right now.
I’ll tell you anyway, I said next, opening the ragged atlas and getting set to join her on the sofa. I was thinking me and you should go on a holiday.
Oh yes.
The Russian Steppes. That’s where I was thinking.
Think some more.
Or the Colosseum in Rome.
I wonder what we’ll do there.
And I hear Greece is a great spot. There’s loads going on in Greece.
Oh yes. Loads.
My friend has been there. Did I tell you about my friend? We’ve been hanging out together.
You have a friend? That’s interesting.
She tells me things. She knows lots of stuff.
Oh. It’s a she. This is interesting.
We hang out together. Talk about where we might go.
Talking is good.
Her ma is gone, but her da is still around.
Is he now?
He’s been crying for a long time. He doesn’t sound like he’s camped out under a happy star.
My heart is bleeding for him.
We were thinking. He could call around to see you.
What did you just say?
Her ma is gone and her da is crying
and taking his fist out on everything. He sounds like he needs to call around to see you.
I think you better stop talking now. Have you stopped? This might encourage you.
And with those words she was up on her feet and stepping into the kitchen where she rummaged for what it was she wanted before she marched back into the sitting room and, with a tremendous thud, brought the hurley stick down on top of the television. At once the picture changed from pink to green. She didn’t seem to mind, though. She dropped the hurley and returned to the sofa.
So? Have you stopped? Oh, good. And now I would like you to make yourself scarce. Think you can manage that? There’s no need to answer. A nod will do. That’s it. OK. Goodbye now, see you later. Much later.
She hadn’t another word to say, and somewhere inside the slow glare she was offering the room, I caught a scene from my near future. A mad woman flinging glass across the room, leaping off the sofa and with her weapon of choice – spatula, brush handle, hurley stick – one more time ripping through the sitting room, scalping and battering and lashing out at everything in her line of vision before turning her wrath on her one son, her only child, and with one almighty swipe knocking his head into the nearest septic tank. And I was looking at her and all I wanted to say was, can I get you something, Ma? Anything you say. Just name it. But it was obvious she was fed up with all my questions and wanted me out of there. I wasn’t getting another word out of her, not even a let me have a think about that, Jason, let me think about what I want and I’ll get back to you. No sir. All I was getting was make yourself scarce for a good while.
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