Malarky (2 page)

Let it ring, let them wonder. She took time to slowly wind back down the garden with the bucket empty, pausing to unhook her boots, customarily bash them together and position them by the mat. She would be busy for another day. The suggestions had just nudged her again. Nipped the bottom of her brain, sent a twitch down her spine into her arms, and created that unsettled feeling in her stomach of having missed a step on the stairs, that indicated the return of the thought that was never far from her all these years: would Patsy's son have said something to someone about Jimmy? It worried her a great deal more than her son being in a war zone.

Monday, she'd talk to the girls on Monday. Monday, she'd be ready again.

Mondays were difficult for other reasons.

Her mind stretched back to remember last Monday and
thoughts of that man's stubbly neck still provoked her. A farmer he was of course, sure who else were you likely to find standing in the Co-op submerged in thoughts over bags of feed. Stood like a post he was in the third aisle beside the shelf that held the goat harnesses, beside the check red, warm shirts hanging up on the back wall.

—Is that shirt neck size 16? he had called to her, waving a shirt. She was glad the aisle was wide enough to accommodate the smothering smell of him.

—I'm looking for a sixteen. Is it sixteen? I can't read the sizes. I've no glasses.

He leaned over to her, opening his mouth for air and she spied cornflakes in there amid his mouthy parts of minimal teeth and expansive gums. The ingrained grey stubble on his face and the hostile reek of silage from his boots below gave him an air like an old jug. She marveled that the man could leave the house in such a state, whilst softened by his need for help. His request to her, pulling her closer to the end of the aisle, bringing her into a corner she would normally have drawn her tummy in and passed. His jumper, torn at the neck, had collected and displayed much of his farming during the past week. He had a warm face, she noted. A warm face made a grand amount of difference to what came below the neck. No matter the proximity she might live to him, they were of slightly different worlds, hers was a more insulated union of floral curtains, the odd ornament, a framed photo and cleanly, swept fireplace, while she could imagine his spartan bathroom arrangement, the Wellies sat beneath the table and perhaps a pan and brush laid against the far kitchen wall. She could see perhaps him and his brother sat at the kitchen table eating bread and butter, slurping milky tea, not saying much, if anything at all. She ceased thinking on his domestic arrangements for she felt herself grow itchy. Yet in those few minutes of rummaging
for a shirt and him taking advantage of having her attention long enough to ask carefully where had she driven in from today, she felt useful.

Hours later though, back at home, the interaction perturbed her. She worried hard: did she hand him a neck size 14? She strained to visualize the number of the label or was it on the packet? She couldn't recall. He might never make the journey back to change it and would be stuck wearing the shirt with a neck too tight. Would his brother mock him quietly behind the milky tea, knowing he was after buying a shirt too small, maybe too smug to tell him? Would he go into Mass squeezed into it?

At the peak of this anxiety, the day was ruined, utterly ruined and she saw no choice but to drive all the necessary miles back again and discreetly count the shirts. Might she, if she counted them, be able to find how many were missing and then know what size she'd given him?

Behind the Co-op, amid the cars collecting feed and fluke, she struggled to find a place to park. She entered the shop, happy to see the young fella engrossed at the counter with two men measuring chains. There was one less shirt neck size fourteen when she looked. She hung around the back aisle 'til the men buying chain were gone. She approached the counter and confessed to the young fella, who had been in school with her Jimmy some years back.

—I made a mistake, she said, I feel awful. I've given him the wrong size.

—Sure if it's the worse thing that ever happened to him, he'll have a good life. The young fella laughed lightly before noticing she was serious. He tapped into the computer and told her, Don't worry your head about it, I have it here, it was a size 16 your man bought.

He came around from the back of the counter, took the two shirts from her.

—You're very good to come up and check, but next time phone and save yourself the journey, he said gently, walking her over to the door with his arm on her back.

—How's Jimmy? he asked as she stepped out past him.

—Still away.

—Must be awful hard. Where is he at now?

—Afghanistan it is now, she said quietly.

—Must be awful hard, he repeated.

On the few steps back to the car, she lifted her hand and waved at a neighbour who was struggling to get a final sack of cattle meal (suckler nuts) into an already full car boot. It wasn't true that young fellas were all drunkards, car thieves and vandals the way the newspapers claimed they were in every other headline. That young fella's remarking was the most comfort she'd had in as many days. When she lowered the handbrake the awful thought struck her that the young fella inside might only have only asked about Jimmy because he was one of them homosexuals too. The small comfort evaporated and she remembered that Joanie had said after watching Elton John on the Late, Late Show that she noticed gays asked a lot of questions. Joanie had said it twice. She remembered it well because she'd wanted to move on from it after the first time, thinking it ridiculous that whomever you laid down beside might prompt the number of questions you asked. But the thought was back at her now. Was he one who asked questions, that fella? Or was he genuine? She knew his mother, now she'd have to call into her someday in search of the answer.

Maybe the mother asked plenty questions too. She'd see. Suggestion, the pain of suggestions was at her again.

The phone rang its encore as she put kettle to cooker. She lifted the receiver to hear Kathleen.

—You weren't down to us today, Kathleen began, and I worried about you. What's wrong? Is it the diabetes?

—No, not sick, just busy the next few days, her, reassuring back, while giving no clue to what might have her so engaged. The phone continued to ring, each of the five of them. Until finally when she considered not lifting the phone it rang the sixth time and she heard Joanie again.

—Had she seen the television? Joanie wondered, the way people can wonder without explanation or making an inquiry. A helicopter with sixteen of them, I thought of Jimmy and I said I'd better ring to be sure where he is.

—It's not Afghanistan he's at, she stated. It's Iran, isn't it?

—No it is. He was redeployed there.

—Well the Lord save us, I only hope he's not among them, Joanie blurted.

Our Woman added the number 16 to the bottom of the table mat where she records all the announced losses each time the radio news relayed them. A long line of numbers with a + religiously following each one.

—Mam.

Jimmy stood eyeing her.

—Mam.

He smiled slightly and she knew exactly what he was about to say.

She'd ignored it, the looks, the caught embraces and the horrifying teenage moment when haphazardly one afternoon she wandered up to the barn and lightly pushed the door ajar, a crack, to quietly see the shirtless outline of him. He must have been freezing, his pale body bleary and quivering, trousers at his ankles. She could make out a hand on one of his calves, the other arm wound around the back of his legs and could hear light moaning, and a gurgled aaah that gashed his breathing, while his legs rocked back and forward a bit, urging on whoever was at him below. Her gaze returned to his behind, squinted to see where fingers repeatedly squeezed it, intent on getting the last dregs out of him. She stayed with this motion, transfixed by the bold combining of hands in pulling desire and mouth bound in a thirsty filthiness of suck and thrust. They were working hard, whoever was at him. A bit of a slobber, not unlike a thirsty cow's tongue lapping swipe at the first sight of water.

She ascertained by the hair and the shoes it was a male with its head stuck into Jimmy's middle, but never having seen anything the like of it, she left as swift as she'd arrived, shaken,
shaken to core, then disgusted and unsure what to do about it. If it was an animal, you'd put it to sleep. Or give it a kick.

Mainly she had wanted to hit him about the head and shout these aren't the things I have
planned for
you.

She did nothing. Only the washing up. Angrily.