Bend for Home, The (24 page)

I bring Maisie her breakfast on a round imitation silver tray. On one plate are little portions of banana and cheese, on another a slice of toast minus its crust cut into squares, a bowl of Frosties and a mug of tea with two and a half sugars.

I tap on her door.

Good morning, Maisie, I call.

Good morning yourself, she says, with her back to me in the bed. Here we are again.

It’s raining.

I wouldn’t be surprised.

I have your breakfast.

You must be beginning to wonder, she says, when all of this will end.

Not at all.

She puts one hand to the side of her face.

I couldn’t care, she says, if I never ate another thing. She turns. Did you ever feel like that?

Sometimes. Do you know what they call the swan in Rosses Point in Sligo?

No.

The Drumcliffe pilot, I explain.

The Drumcliffe pilot, she says.

For you see when the people see a swan flying over the village the story goes that whatever house he flies over in there someone will die.

Now, says Maisie.

And because in those days the nearest graveyard was over the sea in Drumcliffe, the swans were known as the Drumcliffe pilots.

Swans, says Maisie.

That’s right.

We learn something new every day, and she folds her hands on her lap. I leave her sitting on the edge of the bed. She eats and ponders every morsel. Combs her dyed, thinning hair. And sometimes, if I’ve forgot to empty it, she trundles on her steed to the bathroom across the aisle tapping ahead of her the can of pee from her commode. She’s in there for ages. When I go in after her the place is in a shambles.

What’s going on, I ask her. I had to clean up after you in the loo.

I have the trots, she says. There was so much talk of shit in this house yesterday that I caught the runs.

I bring her radio from the bedroom to the kitchen table. Soon she appears on her steed, stands in the middle of the room and checks that every one of the figurines on the sideboard is in its correct place. Then she scrutinizes the photos and the statues on the windowsill. If there is any strange object among them she’ll ask to have it removed. Everything must be where it was yesterday and the day before.

The same scrutiny takes place in the sitting room.

Leaning on her walking-aid she lifts the Spanish Lady and looks into her face, toys with her dress and replaces her exactly where she should be. She moves the yellow-haired china boy a fraction so that he is closer to the yellow-haired china girl. She touches the big green dogs that sat on the old wireless in the Breifne. Touches the flower lady.

Returns an inch at a time to the sofa. Drops into it.

Aren’t they beautiful flowers, she says pointing at a plastic arrangement of faded roses. Have they been watered today?

They’re plastic, Maisie.

Oh. She looks at the flowers in disbelief. She focuses on me. Who was that girl you went out with when you were young?

Sheila.

And we had to close our gobs when we walked by her door.

That’s right.

And that beard. She shivers. Why don’t you take it off?

I’ve always had it.

That’s the problem, she says, nodding.

She fixes her cushions and rests her elbow, leans sideways to watch the TV.

What nonsense is this?

Some old film.

Charles Laughton.

Aye.

And Cagney.

Yes.

Where’s Winnie?

Sleeping.

It’s lonesome without her, says Maisie. Poor Winnie. She doesn’t know the time of day. But you want her there all the same.

She turns to me.

Ring Nancy, Dermot, she says. Ring her and tell her to come round.

I sit with the mother in the early mornings. She prays, I write. It is a private meditative time, broken by visits to the toilet, exclamations to the Mother of God and to Jesus, and explosions from Maisie’s radio in her bedroom.

I look up. The mother is watching me.

Is that you? she asks.

Yes.

Dermot?

Yes.

Hm. Where is Helen?

At work in Sligo, I say.

And how are all her people?

Fine, I say.

She’s at her best just after breakfast, the curtains thrown wide, and the late autumn light not quite flooding in. We sit with our backs to the outside world. We are trapped in what apparently is. We cannot take off elsewhere. But though this is not a fiction where everything happens in the so-called world of make-believe, sometimes the mundane everyday feels like an illusion – anything might happen, the authentic is a trick, and the story is not really known till it’s told.

Today she is blissfully benign. She looks over at me and laughs while I make up things that never really happened, or if they did, happened to some other, some distant self that’s been quietened by time, that never existed till words bring it again into being for further scrutiny. Then the inevitable happens. You come to a stop. The whole philosophizing sours. She even loses her earlier calm.

She flings the rosary into its pot.

Get me up, she says.

No, I say, stay there.

Can I not go to my blessed bed?

No, I say. Not till later.

Why?

If you sleep now, you won’t sleep later. If you get up by yourself, you might fall. And Nancy is coming this evening.

Nancy?

Yes, Nancy.

She goes back to her prayers. I feed Maisie, make dinner, Eileen hoovers the house, cartoons explode from the telly. Three times in the afternoon I bring Mother to bed, and three times she gets up again. So that by the time Eileen comes to relieve me at five Mother has not had her usual nap. I slink off in the rain to town and into the supermarket. They ask after Mrs Healy. Then, on to Gene Bannon’s bar. When I get back from the pub after six with tomorrow’s dinner and wine and brandy, Eileen has mother dressed up in a pink blouse, her fingernails are newly painted and her hair is neatly brushed.

You look lovely, Mother, I say.

You left me, she declares.

He had to go to town, shouts Maisie.

And I had to hold her down, says Eileen, to keep her from going to bed.

Blasted bitch, snaps Mother.

We’ve been a bad girl, Mrs Healy.

Yayaya, says Mother.

And the strength of her.

I want to go to bed, says Winnie, and this yoke here won’t let me.

It’s too early, Eileen says. If you go now you’ll be there for the night.

That’s right, says Maisie.

What’s she saying? asks Winnie.

And anyway, Mother, I say, Nancy is coming.

Nancy?

Your sister.

I know she’s my sister.

That’s right, Winnie, Maisie shouts, Nancy will be here soon.

Who’s talking to you? says Winnie.

At seven as she promised, Aunty Nancy, eighty years of age and sister of the two dames, steps out of Dr Magauran’s car. She arrives with a
bottle of wine, a huge pizza from Quinnsworth, and a large pavlova. My mother explodes into laughter at the sight of her.

There you are, she says.

How are you, Winnie?

My mother smiles.

I said, How are you!

That’s right, says Mother, and she turns to me. That one loved riding horses, she says.

So I did.

You faggot, you, get Nancy a drink, Mother says, prodding my shoulder with a bony finger.

And what about me, chirps Maisie, have I not got a mouth on me?

And give her one as well.

Now for you, says Maisie.

I split the pizza in four and the three sisters sit down to the meal with gusto. I cut Maisie’s and the mother’s share into small pieces. Then all three ladies fire a wad of salt onto their plates.

The wine, Dermie, says Nancy.

What’s this? says Maisie, looking at her plate.

A piazza, announces Nancy.

A what?

A piazza.

It’s not one of those curries he makes? she asks.

No, it’s not a damn curry. Try it and see.

We’ll be poisoned.

Maisie tries a piece. The mother watches us. She’s on the verge of being bold, of refusing. I tie her bib. Still she makes no move. Then she lifts a slice. Then another. Hilarious chat ensues. They love the pizza and to my amazement not a scrap remains.

Now, didn’t I tell you? says Nancy.

Dessert! calls Mother.

Hauld your horses, says Nancy, can’t you?

Dessert! calls Mother again.

Jesus, you’d think she had a firecracker up her arse, laughs Nancy.

Stop the dirty talk, says Mother laughing. She lifts a strawberry and dips it in the cream, rolls it around in her mouth and swallows.

Nice, she says.

We’ll be on the throne all fucking night, says Maisie.

By the time we’ve eaten the pavlova myself and Nancy have finished the first bottle of wine. Then we start on a second and move on out to the living room. Maisie is on her third brandy and ginger ale. I stroll, with the mother in tow, to her armchair.

She’s like a guinea hen beside him, says Maisie, God help her.

Now what? says Mother.

Nothing, I say.

Mother starts to push herself up out of the chair.

Where are you going? asks Nancy.

The mother sits back and smiles.

Take something, can’t ye, says Nancy.

No, my mother says.

Take a port.

No.

It will do you no harm.

I’d be up all night.

Give her a brandy and port, says Maisie.

I won’t drink it. She shakes her fists. And that’s final.

She was always stubborn, Nancy says. And always fussy.

Oh always, agrees Maisie.

But Bridgie was the favourite.

She was.

Soon Mother is calling out to go to bed, Maisie wants clove balls and Nancy wants brandy.

There’s no clove balls in the house.

Well, can I have grapes? asks Maisie.

No, I say.

You see that? says Maisie. He won’t give me grapes.

They only give you the runs.

And I love salted peanuts, says Maisie, and I declare he won’t allow me any of them either.

They only give you heartburn.

Doctor
Healy,
she says scornfully.

Oh I suffered from heartburn in my day, says Nancy.

So you did, nods Maisie. I loved onion sandwiches, she adds reflectively and studies me.

So used I, Nancy remembers, and then you wouldn’t let me into the bed with you.

Why would I? She slaps the cushion. She’d eat onion sandwiches and get sick. And then she’d come into my room on her tippytoes. She peers at Nancy.
Maisie,
she’d whisper and she only five.

Go away,
you’d say.

And then she’d get in behind me.

And what was wrong with that? asks Nancy.

You were like a cold frog after standing in the outdoor closet.

Let me up to your stalk,
I’d shout.

No
, I’d say.

The clock goes back tonight, I add.

And the country people, says Maisie, will say:
Is that auld time or new time?
You see it used to confuse them.

What are you saying? asks Mother, and she leans over and nips me.

I said the clock goes back tonight.

In more ways than one, shrieks Nancy.

Look at her, adds the mother. Jazzing.

The bottle of brandy is sinking. Finea and its people enter the room as the three women, who between them add up to a total of 262 years on this earth, begin reminiscing about the village around the turn of the century – the Clarkes, the Clavins, the Keoghs, Brian Sheridan, women, dogs, death. They break into gales of laughter.

Mary Jane slept with her two brothers, roared Nancy.

What’s that? asked Maisie.

Mary Jane, she slept with her two brothers.

And she used to milk the cow into the fucking pisspot, agrees Maisie, chuckling, with her eyes to heaven. Into the fucking pisspot.

Dear God, says Mother, she did.

And the priest came in with the host for the stations and found the three of them in bed.

Dear God, repeats my mother and she claps her knees.

Then auld Clarke got randy at the end of his days. He leapt on Josie Flynn.

Jazzing, says mother.

And he all of ninety years of age.

Well, that had to overtake him sometime, states Maisie.

He was old enough not to know a mickey from a pussy, shrieks Nancy.

And by God, says Maisie, if he didn’t come back for more.

What are they saying? asks Mother.

Oh, as if she wouldn’t know, Nancy says.

Are they talking dirty?

They are, I say.

I thought so.

And a gypsy woman, continued Nancy, came into the shop to old Clarke and she said:
Could you give me something for the childer? I have seven childer. Out! Out! Out!
he roared –
you had the sport of them, not me.

There’s no doubt about it, says Mother.

I fill more glasses.

Squealer McHugh, sniggered Nancy.

Oh, Squealer McHugh.

He got so drunk one Christmas he couldn’t walk.

And they put him into a barrow, says Maisie, with a lantern on it and pushed him up the village.

And someone saw him and thought it was the Holy Family coming.

Dear God, laughs my mother.

Then there was the Marcus Somerville. He wasn’t the full shilling. Do you remember Marcus Somerville, Winnie?

What are you saying?

Do you remember Marcus?

Marcus? The Marquis of Somerville, she says, correcting the pronunciation. Of course I do, the poor creature. He was put out of the big house and came to us.

He did, agrees Maisie.

He had a very good speaking voice, Winnie declares.

He was aristocratic, agrees Nancy, and I was intrigued by him.

You were intrigued by anything in trousers, laughs Maisie. She turns to me. Did she ever tell you of Matti Sheridan?

No, I say.

Oh, Matti Sheridan, says Nancy.

He came to Nancy and said:
It’s lilac time again
.

That’s right, nods Nancy, he did.

He was trying to work up an affair with you. And you a grass widow.

Your Uncle Jim at the time, Nancy explains, was in England.

Yes,
It’s lilac time again,
Matti Sheridan said to her.

He did, agrees Nancy, and the two laugh outrageously.

My mother blinks, feeds the rosary through her fingers. Maisie studies her, burps suddenly, then exclaims, Dear God.

Winnie, she says.

My mother does not reply.

It’s terrible to think she doesn’t know what’s going on, says Maisie sadly. And she can’t hear a word we say.

Winnie, shouts Nancy, have a drink.

My mother throws Nancy a hostile eye.

Take me to my bed, she says, and then leans over and nips me.

In a minute, I say.

Blessed God, she sighs.

She dribbles her beads into the pot, and sits with her hands joined in her lap, and her eyes on the ceiling.

Seamus, says Nancy, in a low voice, was very cut up when Mammy died.
I never told her I loved her,
he said.

That’s right, agrees Maisie.

We go quiet for a while, the central heating shudders and figures go by in silence on the TV. Nancy looks into her glass and nods to herself. She weeps a little and shakes her head. Maisie leans on her arm and watches Mother.

Dermot.

Yes.

What time is it in Canada?

I don’t know.

Are they before us or behind us?

Behind us, I think.

Well, ring Tony in Canada, said Maisie, and let him speak to your mother. She’d like that.

Do you want to speak to Tony, Mother? I shout.

My eldest is far away, she says.

I can get him on the phone.

Don’t be bothering me.

I can phone him, Mother, I shout.

Stop shouting at me.

Tony, says Nancy. Do you want to speak to Tony?

The mother forms the word Tony on her lips a number of times, then closes her eyes, as if she were tempting providence. I reach over and take her hand.

What now? she asks wearily.

C’mon with me, I say.

Are we going for a walk?

We are.

Good.

She tries to rise from the chair and falls back again. I take both her hands and haul her to her feet. She adjusts her glasses and plods fearfully across the room. She heads in the direction of her bedroom so I steer her before me along the hallway to the front door. We open the door and look out at the stars. I close the door and ring Tony. Nancy and Winnie wait behind me. When he answers I say, Hold on there, Tony, the mother is here. I hand the phone to her. She looks at it uncertainly.

Mother, I can hear Tony saying, is that you?

It’s Tony, I say. I raise my voice. Mother, it’s Tony.

She drops the phone and heads off.

Come back, says Nancy, and speak to your beloved son in Toronto.

I bring her back again. She lifts the instrument to her ear.

Mother, says Tony.

Say something, can’t you, Nancy orders.

Will you take me to the toilet? Mother asks.

I will, says Tony.

Then she replaces the phone.