Malarky (24 page)

People assume a mother to be protective over who marries her daughter, not me, any man who wanted them could have either of mine, if he'd a clean face and a warm hand. I never worried about my girls. Especially the eldest, I knew she'd be grand. I raised them that way. I raised them strong and indifferent and they knew they'd only have my
attention when they practiced it and neither of them let me down.

When the girls were sick they'd push me away and take to the pillow, not Jimmy, he'd cling to me like a clawing rabbit, he'd sit on me, hang off me, drop around my ankles if I stopped still. I could see him physically hurt if I had to go out to the kitchen to turn on the kettle. I never slept a night that boy had any illness. I sat in the bed, hand on his piping hot head, I talked him through the chicken pox, the measles, there wasn't a thought or fear that child didn't share with me.

Jimmy's the only person in my life who ever gave me a fright. No one could give me a fright the way Jimmy could. I had a terrible pain worrying about Jimmy serving himself up to the wrong man, yawning his way to the beyond.

—I have days where I can't remember whether I have buried my son or not.

Am I forgetting things? Grief asks, perky today because I talked first.

—Yes. I am.

Can I remember that I buried my husband? Grief asks.

—My husband is always dead, I never forget the day I buried him but I am very confused about Jimmy.

Grief wants the full extent of the confusion.

I'm too exhausted to explain it.

Take your time. She sits back, waits. Would that she were just a little more impatient.

Everything about widowhood is exhausting because you're trying to recall, unable to recall and then expected to explain why you cannot recall. It is not as simple as living. It is not as simple as being irritated. Being alive and married is like sanding a windowsill. Maybe it is dusty, it may get in your eyes or knick your fingers but you can look at it and see there's a windowsill. You can look at your husband and feel no need to say anything to him.

The curse of the widow is the non-stop chatter outside and around your head. Like a television talk show where you loathe the questions, but cannot turn it off. Miriam, Miriam, Miriam go away with your nice gentle questions.

I walked to find some peace.

They thought I was walking for madness.

I was walking from madness.

It was true I gave them a shock. I concede this much to Grief.

—You gave them a shock, Grief informs me at my weekly appointment. If you are going to give them a shock then they're going to be afraid for you.

Was there any need to be afraid for me, she wants to know. Was I danger to myself?

To be on the safe side she is going to have someone from the Health Board look in on me.

Bina worries they'll send me to Ballinasloe. She tells me so. If they ship you to Ballinasloe you won't come back.

If they take you, she says, you need a witness here to record it. I won't leave your side.

She's good that way Bina.

His father took a few days to notice.

—Is that fella gone? He asked indignant.

—He is.

—Well glory be to God, I thought he'd never go.

I lay down in our bed and cried quietly for as I already told you I do not like to invite questions when I cry.

His father had not asked where his son was gone.

—Is he coming back? Himself requested when eventually I rejoined him in the kitchen.

—He has gone to America to join the military. He only came home because he was waiting on his papers.

—And how is it I wasn't told?

—You weren't in the night he told me, and you were up and gone the morning he left.

—He should never have come home at all.

Words. Rolling pin to pastry.

—He only came home because you forced him outta college.

—I did nothing of the sort.

Stubborn. A considered pause.

—Isn't it as well for him. He's too soft. And soft as he is, it was you made him that way.

A pause. I choose not to fill.

—Now come again, where is it he's gone and what has he joined? It could be the making of him!

I could not tell whether I was sad because what Himself said was the truth, or whether I was sad because for all his ferocity Himself genuinely seemed taken with the idea of Jimmy in uniform. I could not say it was no good thing, for I would risk usurping that brief moment of approval.

Instead I told myself that his father, above all of us, was the most ambitious for Jimmy. Himself believed Jimmy'd thrive with discipline. He was right that Jimmy would not thrive the way I had made him, if I could only tell you what that referred to.

The only thing Joanie says she heard about anybody making anybody anything around the homosexuals like ya know is a program she saw on psychology where she said they said that a baby born with his nose up to the heavens rather than down to the floor may have a predilection to being a gay.