Malarky (22 page)

She's stuck.

Our Woman is stuck.

Her hand is on his wrist and his question is odd. Will it be even odder if she pulls it off. It would so she leaves it, but it's no longer light, rather she's clutching his arm nervously, uncomfortably.

—How was it? he repeats.

—It was childbirth, she replies. Uncomfortable, unpleasant, bloody and . . . would he like more tea? She lifts her hand away to go for the teapot. He does not want tea. He's waiting on her, he wants to return to childbirth. It is pure madness, live and interactive on her sofa on a Sunday. And he takes her hand and puts it strangely on his belly, like there's a baby in there. It's uncanny. Perhaps he has children some other place. Perhaps he has children all over the place. Perhaps he wants to import them. Perhaps he wants her to help him import them. She only knows whatever he has and wherever it is, it is not her business. If it were to become her business, it may make it difficult for him to sit on her couch. A scenario that wouldn't please her. She doesn't wish for anything that would make him cease visiting. And this is the reason she attends to it.

With her hand on his stomach and longing to oblige his request – was it, after all, so unreasonable – a man who came from a uterus having questions about what came from hers since he hadn't one of his own?

Well, she says, what exactly is it you want to know, I am happy to tell you if it really does interest you this much.

All of it, he replies. All of it.

Our Woman thinks back and commences. They lie against her couch and she talks into the space between them and the fireplace. Neither looks at the other as she soliloquizes and the fire handily cracks a bit to cover up the odd word.

Remember, she begins, I have had three children and so
each birth was different. For starters they were all born in a different season and we'd different problems around the farm as each arrived. I delivered every one of them alone in a room except for a doctor or nurse who called in occasionally to ask how I was getting on and then took over at the end. In those days your husband was not allowed in the room while you gave birth. When my son was born my husband did not know he'd arrived for two days because there was a lot of problems with a sick cow at the time and he was out day and night tending to it and I had gone to Castlebar and stayed there and word had been sent, but we'd no phone then and well you don't want to know this. The worst birth was the first my eldest daughter, it was an indicator of what was to come for she's a difficult and obstinate girl and pardon my vulgarity, but she has a very big head. I was offered a handful of blue and pink pills, which at first I refused, then seeing how awkward this creature was I requested they hand them to me again. They didn't make a difference, but my waters, which had insisted on not breaking then dropped out of me and my distant memory of her birth is that my feet were as wet as a penguin's.

He laughs.

Great, he's still alive, she thinks.

—I can only say to you that it was an inhumane experience that I vowed so help me God I would never repeat as long as I was in the full control of my senses.

—You felt no joy? No elation? He asks. You had no moment of completeness?

—I was stitched from my arse to my elbow. I was tired, I was resentful and I wanted to cut my own hands off.

—And then?

—Then I had a cup of tea and six weeks later, I felt better.

My second daughter flew out of me with so little warning she nearly landed head first in a bucket. That's all I can say about it. To this day I am still confused by everything she says and she speaks in a terrible hurry and gives you no real information about anything that has happened or is likely to happen to her. If, though, you were to ask me which daughter you should marry, I would say my son, but failing that this daughter, for the older one has a vicious streak I'd be keen you avoid.

My son, Jimmy, was the last one obviously and since I knew I would not be doing it again I minded it less. It was not an easy birth but the hospital was better and I'll tell you the truth a strange peace came over me where I could have surrendered and died. I couldn't explain it to you if I tried. But when I didn't die and found I had a baby I felt not joy but certainly more contentment than with the previous two. And he was a very easy baby.

But Halim's not satisfied with this, he wants to know about the birth. Does it hurt? And if so how? Explain this pain to him. Explain how the stomach contracts. And how the body pushes out the baby. And could she tell when she became pregnant? He's pressing her for minute details, and yet here they are the two of them sat so peaceful.

She walks to the back door and puts the bolt on it. She scans the windows and closes the curtains. She turns off the light and leaves on a small lamp.

The best way to explain it is if you try it yourself. Here up you go. Lift your hips.

—No, no, he resists, no, no. He starts giggling.

—Really it'll be easier than explaining it. I'll demonstrate it to you.

—Back you go, she pushes him playfully.

—Lift your backside, she sticks two cushions under him.

—Now she says politely . . . I'll need your leg. She elevates
his left leg at the thigh and calf and pushes it up and gently back so his knee is heading towards his ear. He cranes his head up to see what she's doing.

—No, no lie back there now or you'll ruin it. Your trousers might be a bit tight but sure we'll give it a try. Right. She pushes his leg back to give him the idea. Then lifts his other leg up to the back of the couch.

—Leave your leg up there, she instructs.

Then resumes with the left leg pulsing it backwards until his tendons begin to protest. Once it is as far as it will go and the seams of his trousers look endangered, she says lift your head and breathe. Then with her spare hand she presses down on his belly gently. This is where your womb would be and then her hand skirts the air in a circle below at his groin, this, she indicates is where you feel dreadful pressure like the most bulging constipation you could ever imagine, like your hips will blow off and a giant concrete ball replace them.

He erupts in laughter, leg collapsing from the top of the couch.

—Let me up, he squeals, please let me up. She retreats politely and the two of them laugh in a different way.

—You asked.

—I did.

—And so now you know.

He reaches across for her. You are funny. He kisses her cheek, it's thankful more than presumptive.

—You are funny, he repeats.

—Have you a child somewhere?

—No, he says, I haven't.

Sacred Heart he's still curious.

How long she was married before she became pregnant? Tell him did it happen the first month? How many times did
she do it with her husband before she became pregnant? Did her husband do it in a special way each time she found herself pregnant?

It is time to excuse herself to the toilet. On the seat she allowed the run of urine extra time to give her space to think. What might possess a man to be overflowing with such concerns. He must be looking desperately for a woman to reproduce with. Do they teach the menopause in Syria? There are a lot of rumours about that country.

When she returned he has an even stranger proposal for her.

—You have sexed with a man who gave you three children.

—I have?

—I want you to sex with me and tell me do you find any difference between him and me?

She is perplexed.

—What? What are you saying?

—There must be a difference between the man that gives children and the man that does not. I want you to try to tell me what it is. I must know. He unbuttons his shirt.

—But I wouldn't be qualified to tell you a thing like that, she's distracted by his lovely sleek arms. She cannot get away from his youth and when she sees a hint of it, she wants it. She calculates which is left and right, and before he can say another word, leans over the way she saw Jimmy lean over the watery fella, and plants a long kiss on his nipple, as though all that stands between a man who makes a baby and who doesn't is such a missed kiss. He murmurs something in his language and drops his hands around her back. He cannot do very much else, since she has the monopoly on his chest, so patiently he waits 'til she's lifted her head.

—A woman has never done that to me before, he says pleased. It's precisely the kind of compliment she's received about her baking. They are on the right track. Hurriedly she queues up all the images she caught of Jimmy and his men and tries to choose which one should be next. She has no desire to sleep with him in the traditional sense. She only wants to experience that which her son gave and received.

Halim had his own ideas and they're nice traditional, pleasant ones too, unwrapping the various layers of her clothing, discarding them like onion skins, he's particularly attentive to the inside and outside of her thighs, but she will not give herself up to be flattened and submissive underneath him, so allows a bit of time at that malarky before she moves to the main thrust of her plan. Let's go out to the barn, she suggests, rising. He's startled. Semi-naked and startled. Barn? Barn?