Malarky (15 page)

One of the main ways I kept the two of them apart those last few weeks was to take Jimmy out on walks when I knew his father would be about the house mooching and so on. We had lovely walks the two of us. We'd comment on how much mist or snow was on Nephin. We'd look at the clouds and laugh that rain was on the way when it was actually falling on our heads. We'd joke about the drought in these parts. I took advantage of our solitude to instruct him. I had to instruct him on fellas. I was worried he'd ruin himself. Be careful if you choose a fella, I told him. Try to chose someone who won't go stale easy. Men are very difficult as they age.

He nodded at me as if we had an understanding.

On one of the walks he asked me what I regretted about my life.

—Very little. I said. Very little. I have had a reasonable life. I knew where the next meal was coming from and I'm grateful for that. There are some things I would like to understand but fear I will never get to the bottom of them. I believe your father may have been carrying on with another for a while.

—Impossible, Jimmy said. No woman would have him.

—You'd be surprised it seems. He pressed and pleaded for every detail and I spared him few.

She had approached me, some kind of evangelical outpouring
to do with God but basically she told me he had put his hands on her and she'd come to confess.

—I don't believe it.

Jimmy was disappointed I had not sought to verify her story.

—Go back and ask her how he met her? And then confront him with it.

—He's an old man sure what would be the point. You should know.

Jimmy announced again it was impossible and that perhaps the woman had lost her mind.

—Men always think women have lost their minds I told him, I'd be very careful assuming that.

—You should not assume what she says is true because . . .

—Because what?

—Because no woman would go near him. I promise you that.

—I went near him.

—You didn't know any different.

After that conversation on that walk the two men ceased exchanging any words. Jimmy acted as if his father did not live there anymore and his father simply moved outta the way as soon as Jimmy entered. It was over for the two of them ever sitting at the table together. It was over for the three of us in fact.

The day Jimmy shipped out, I am ashamed to say with so little notice, he caught Bus Eireann from in front of the Post Office to Ballina and would change to catch another to Limerick for Shannon. I wasn't happy about it, as I was driving him to the bus I plagued him with questions.

—What are you going to do?

—Will you have a gun?

—What if you die?

—Then I'll be dead.

—It's too fast, I told him, it's too fast for us to be used to such information.

—Us? He snorted.

—I only came home while I was waiting on my papers, he admitted.

—I wished you'd told me.

—What difference would it have made?

I handed him a milky way, a can of fanta and the paper. God bless, I said.

And my son was gone. Swallowed into the dirty windows of Bus Eireann. Not a great departure. Not the departure he deserved.

I returned to an empty house. My husband so accustomed to dodging Jimmy, up and gone about his day.

He'd be home one more time, he said. One more time before they shipped him out.

Discretion. Our Woman settles on a slow cooker of mutiny.

All everything she plots while making jam and cleaning cupboards. In every sweep of crumbs to the floor, she feels herself nearer to victory. A pony, a Connemara, the future, all in a pony. She continues to chime on about the pony to Himself. Her husband looks blank but curious. Who is it she's talking to about this horse stuff?

—Ah people who know about these things.

—Right. He says.

Whenever he says right he's never listening. That's a fact.

She enjoys that he cannot imagine she can conceive of such an idea alone. Since Red The Twit there's nothing she cannot conceive of. But he's right! There must be a voice of authority! She couldn't carry out or command such wisdom alone! And she has the precise pairing in this operation, for there is the overdue matter of her odyssey, once firm, recently derailed by the return home of the bickering boy and daddy. Finally she's back, she's up, she's flying, well more a bit of a canter, but he must rely on her for information. Act like she knows what he does not. She's watched men do this. Pretend they've knowledge they've no more a whiff of and then hold forth as if they have, while everybody believes them. Bang the hammer and everyone will hear the sound.

Himself is a man who cannot resist prolonging a plan, because it delays a decision and affords rumination and
speculation. And lately his life has been spent speculating on the cattle in that chair and her providing the cup of tea to assist him. Even in cutting off Jimmy, he did it slowly, working up to it like withdrawing blood, took his time, slowly pulling the plunger out, 'til bam, needle out, cheque stopped. Nothing to swab the sting. She's diverted what she can to Jimmy. Few chunks from the ESB bill, but it'll never cover what he needs. And even then he sent it back by return post. I have it sorted mam is all he'll say. I don't need it. I don't need your pity is what he's saying. Jimmy thought she should have overthrown his father. That's a fact.

And now with Jimmy gone, plucked from her by a bunch of men in green with their tongues out hungry for his blood – she was looking for someone to blame and her gaze settled itself back on Himself.

The public library is the place Our Woman goes to find out about acquiring a horse, for it's full of information and people looking for a chat. A picture of a toothless flour handed man in Iran, whose name she cannot pronounce, a man she cannot say hello to, interests her instead more than the horses. Each and every time she comes to Ballina library, she visits this book as if next time she opens it the man in the picture will talk to her.