The Bird Woman (32 page)

A man came last spring, and he said that pain was personal. I asked him what he meant, and he said it wasn’t abstract and
it wasn’t general. It lived there with you, inside you, and invisible, and just the two of you. No one knew it except you,
and no one knew you as it did, and everything you did or said or thought was in its presence. It was more intimate than a
wife, a child, a parent, or your dearest friend; it lived from your body, as mistletoe lives from a tree, yet it was contrary,
for if you died it would die with you, but it used its very best energy to make you want to die.

He was speaking, and I kept looking at the tulips outside the window and I knew there was a connection but I couldn’t figure
it out. I still can’t, I can’t figure out how the beautiful and the terrible can walk side by side at the one time. When he
came in the man had said he’d been sitting outside, looking at my tulips while he waited. He said he loved tulips, and his
mother had loved tulips—they’d been her favourite flower. So the pain hadn’t blinded him, and his joy at the tulips had existed
at the same time and alongside his despair at the pain. He could hold two extreme and opposite emotions together there inside
him,
and he could put his dead mother in there with them and then sit quietly in the chair across from me and tell me about all
three.

The people who came to the door late at night weren’t local and they weren’t Alternatives. They were chronics or else they
were dying, and someone or other had told them, or someone who cared for them, of a woman in Kilkenny who might be worth a
try.

It wasn’t long before I stopped going to the door at night, and now I don’t let the children answer it either. Liam goes and
he talks to whoever is standing there, and if he thinks the case isn’t life-threatening he’ll tell them to make an appointment,
but often as not he’ll tell them to wait. Then he’ll come in and ask will I take a look at whoever they have sitting waiting
in the car.

I might be in the chair by the fire or I might be standing in the summer dusk at the window, watching and listening. I’ll
hear the quiet voices, and I might see part of a face where a slice of light from the other window falls across it. But wherever
I am—by the fire or by the window—nine times out of ten I can tell. No more than that. Not will I do any good, will I even
help them die quicker, just that the need is urgent and I should try. I was afraid when it started, these people were deeply
sick, and I didn’t ever want to see those Pain and Despair and Courage forms again. But they never came and the strange thing
is that something in me has changed and even were they to come again, I don’t think I’d fear them as I once did.

We’ve got so Liam only has to look at me and I’ll nod or shake my head and it’s done. He goes back out, and I’ll go into my
room and turn on the heat and make ready. Or else I’ll hear the car door bang, an engine start, I’ll see the taillights vanish
off into the dark. I hate doing that, it seems to me the saddest thing—the car door opening, the interior light coming on
then going off,
those red taillights turning around and disappearing into the night. I hate it, but what else can I do? I have to live.

I don’t mean to speak as though this happened every night, or even every week, because it didn’t and still doesn’t. If it
did I think every scrap of compassion would be driven from me, I think I’d bolt the door and disconnect the bell and let them
stand there hammering till their fists fell off. Yet there are healers who live like this day and night, have lived like this
for years, who don’t turn anyone away, no matter what the hour.

Not me, I couldn’t stand it. One every two or three weeks is the most I can manage. Any more than that and I’d go mad.

A
UGUST
2000

T
he invitations for Catherine’s Dublin opening arrived in the post. One for me and Liam together, one each for Andrew and Suzanna.
I hadn’t planned on taking them to the opening itself, in spite of Catherine’s request; I’d thought we’d go up quietly, the
three of us, later on. But once those invitations arrived, there was no way I could refuse.

Liam drove and the car behaved and we found a parking place not too far from the gallery. Liam strode in, Suzanna trotting
behind him, with Andrew and I bringing up the rear. The place was stuffed, you couldn’t see any of Catherine’s pieces, all
you could see was this big crush of people with wineglasses in their hands. I could feel Andrew tense and draw back at the
sight, so I caught his hand and gave it a quick, tight squeeze. He looked up at me, but there was concern in his eyes, and
not the dread I’d expected.

“Where’s Catherine?” he hissed at me. “Where’s her sea things?”

“They’ll be in there,” I told him. “Behind all the people—on plinths and up on the walls.”

“But they’re standing in front of them, no one can see them.”
He wasn’t whispering anymore, his voice was firm, his body was stiff with indignation.

“It’s a party,” I explained to him, “a celebration. First people want to talk to each other, then a woman who knows about
art will come to the front and tell everyone about Catherine’s work.”

“Will we see Catherine?”

“Of course we’ll see her, she’ll be standing beside the woman when she’s talking, then she’ll speak a bit herself.”

“Will it make her happy?”

I laughed. “Of course it will, it’s her party.” Andrew was up on the tips of his toes, craning to see between the people.
Liam had vanished off into the crowd, and Suzanna had dropped back to join us. I felt a small hand reach out and curl itself
around mine. Suzanna, looking for comfort. I was touched. Andrew pulled firmly on my other sleeve.

“Over there,” he said. “There’s seaweed on the wall. Come on.” He squeezed and shoved his way through the crowd with me following
after, Suzanna still clutching tight to my hand. When we got there a long, fluted band of beer-brown seaweed was snaking and
shining from ceiling to floor. Framed drawings hung to either side of it, and further along a brace of jewelled flatfish slid
over the sandy bottom of an alcove. Andrew’s hand reached for the seaweed. Suzanna let go of me, ducked under someone’s elbow,
and quick as a flash, her fingers were on the fish.

“Please don’t let the children touch the exhibits.” A young woman carrying a tray of wineglasses spoke from just behind us.
Her voice was harassed, but not unpleasant. Andrew’s hand retracted at the speed of light.

“It’s alright,” another voice said, a familiar voice. “They can touch; they’re friends of mine, they won’t break anything,
they’re used to handling my work.”

Beside me Andrew swelled up like a little bullfrog so I nearly thought he’d burst.

Catherine stayed with us and talked for a bit, then someone came looking for her, and she had to go off and stand in the middle
of the room for the speeches, which were long and boring, one person introducing the next for what began to seem like forever.
At last it was Catherine’s turn, but she only smiled her wide smile and told us all we’d made her night.

“Is that
all
she’s going to say?” Andrew was dead disappointed, and so was Suzanna—I think they were nearly expecting a special mention.

After that we worked our way round, the two of them ducking and wriggling and using their elbows until there wasn’t a piece
in the show that they hadn’t minutely examined. Then we went and found Liam.

“What did I tell you,” he said, his arm sweeping round.

He was right, there were red stickers everywhere, you’d have to look hard for even a drawing now that still hadn’t sold.

The children were dead on their feet, so I left them with him while I went for a last word with Catherine. I’d been watching
out, hoping for a private word, but as one lot departed the next lot arrived—she seemed to be always caught in a throng. I
hovered about, awaiting my chance; there was only this one man beside her, which was as nearly alone as she was about to get.

I went over and she hugged me happily then introduced me, but we weren’t even through the first sentence when one of the gallery
staff came to call her away.

“Don’t move, either of you,” she told us. “I’ll be back before you’ve even noticed I’ve gone.”

What could we do except wait for her and try our hand at a little conversation?

He was fifty or so, very smartly dressed, but kind as well, for he picked up how shy I was and he started to tell me about
himself to fill up the gaps. He was into modern art, he said, and he ran off a list of artists whose pictures he’d bought,
then explained which period in a career each painting belonged to and what he thought was the artist’s strongest phase. He
was showing off as well as helping me out, I could see that, but he loved the whole world of paintings and artists, there
was an innocence and an enthusiasm about him that I completely fell for. If I’d been Liam I could have lobbed the ball back,
discussed his views, argued the toss on who had peaked and who was going to go on getting better, and he’d have loved that
too. But I wasn’t, so I couldn’t. Instead I just smiled and nodded and searched around in my head for something to ask him
to keep the conversation going and not let Catherine down. I was working up to some idiot question about what he did if his
wife didn’t like a picture he’d bought, but at that moment Catherine came back and saved us both from each other.

He switched to her right away, but he didn’t dump me, he went on including me with his eyes as he spoke. It seemed he’d just
bought Catherine’s best rock pool, and he was as pleased with it and with Catherine and with himself as any child. He was
even pleased with me as well, while he was at it.

I managed a few more sentences, then mumbled about going home. Catherine said something effortlessly courteous, then slid
an arm into mine and walked me away.

Two days later Catherine was sitting in my little room with my hands moving themselves across her head. Sometimes my fingers
found a place and pressed hard; sometimes they dragged and rubbed across the bone. Standing there, looking down on her, I
could see her belly’s swell beneath her loose sweater. When she
stood you’d hardly notice, but it wouldn’t be long before you couldn’t not.

She was as high as a kite still from the success of her exhibition, she couldn’t believe her luck.

“Imagine it, Ellen. People paying out money like that for bits of glass and clay! My bits of glass and clay. Gas, isn’t it?
Who’d have thought there’d be so many people around with all that cash going spare? Would you like some, Ellen? I’d love you
to buy something you’ve been hankering after, I wouldn’t mind how boring it was. What about a tumble dryer? A fridge freezer?
A smart new cooker?”

I told her I liked hanging washing, and what was wrong with the fridge and the cooker I had? I said she should take herself
down to the bank to pay off some of those loans.

“To hell with the bank and the loans,” she said, “why won’t you take my money? From the look on your face you’d think I’d
been running guns.”

So I asked if her gynaecologist had said anything to her about blood pressure.

That stopped her short. She asked was there anything wrong.

“I don’t know,” I said. “The question popped out of its own accord, I didn’t feel it coming on.”

“He hasn’t mentioned blood pressure. But he thinks I might need a section on account of my age.” She sat there, the lines
of her face all dragged down with unhappiness.

I stared at her, not knowing what to say. I make a point of never going against a doctor’s advice to a patient, no matter
what they tell me their doctor has said. What do I know? Nothing at all—beside a doctor I’m barely literate. And I’m not in
for the long haul: I don’t write prescriptions, I don’t have to deal with side effects or recriminations, no one sues me,
I don’t have to watch my patients die. At worst I’m a last resort, a shot in the
dark when there’s nothing left to lose. If I fail, I fail The people who come here have no expectations. Everyone else has
failed, all they’re asking me to do is try.

But I hated seeing Catherine like that, head bowed, all the excitement gone out of her like a doused light.

“Did he give you any more reason than that?” I asked carefully. “Did he say what he was afraid of?”

She shook her head. “Just my age. He said it would be safer—for
both
of us.” She stroked the palm of her hand slowly down the curve of her belly. “It knocked all the fight out of me. When he
said it like that he made me feel it was selfish to object.”

“You’ve a bit more time yet,” I said as gently as I could. “And since you’re so rich, you might even think of getting a second
opinion… ?”

She looked up, the light back in her face. “I never thought of that. I don’t know why I’m being like this—so passive, so accepting.
It’s not like me at all—”

“Partly it’s the process. You’re supposed to be passive; you’re a vessel for carrying and growing a baby. And you’ve never
done it before—it’s scary.”

“It is, isn’t it?” The light was still in her face, but the tears were running down it as well. “I cry a lot. It’s not like
me. I keep saying that, don’t I? Were you like this, Ellen?”