Bend for Home, The Read online

The fire in the bakehouse went out three times, then the bell rang and Sheila was at the door. The Labour Band went down Farnham Street.

  23rd Mon.

  Dermot woke me at ¼ past 8. We headed down to the Central Café for free coffee and buns then Sean McManus sat us into the sports car and we headed for Dublin singing opera all the way. Beyond Virginia we skidded and ended up facing home. Landed anyway and I went down to the Parnell house to see Ollie, and Johnny and all the barmen. Then off round Dublin. Muck everywhere. Awful place. Muck even in O’Connell Street. Where did it come from? Went and bought a new jumper, then waited an hour outside the Metropole for Sean and when he came at last we went in for a drink. We set out only to stop at the first pub out the road. Then we stopped beyond Navan, in Kells, and in the Park in Virginia. A great sing-song all the way home. At 20 mile an hour we cruise into Cavan. Some day.

  24 Tues. Christmas Eve.

  Walked back round by Town Hall Street where all the kids were gathered in the dusky yard for Bud McNamara dressed as Santa Claus to give out presents. With Frank Brady in the Ulster Arms wearing the new scarf my mother had bought me. Poor Jack, he said. Buy all present – Sheila, Dermot, Paddy Kelly – a drink. Vodkas and beers. Then Sheila gives me a present.

  Don’t open it till tomorrow.

  I won’t, I said.

  You promise.

  I do.

  Then she went home and I went down to Donohue’s with the boys. Bridge Street was all go. Drinks and fags. Great fun. We came up Main Street, and I said Goodnight, I was going to go home, I’d promised. In the Breifne window our Santa was still nodding. I looked at him a while going over and back. With his wisp of beard and confetti on his red shoulders, he looked a little tatty and alone, and the window seemed very bare without the cakes and the boxes of chocolates. He’d grown older somehow, still that didn’t stop him nodding away in the empty window. Nod, yes, you can have what you like, Nod, indeed whatever you like, Nod, just ask, Nod, anything, anything at all, bowing his head like the altar boy below the altar, Nod, why yes, my good man, like a Chinaman before his master, Nod, the whole world if you want, his small polished boots on a doily, the small shoulders; then, as I let myself in the door, Andy called across the street, Healy, you dosser, so we move off down to the bus station but there’s no buses so a crowd of us headed out the railway lines, and sat on the platform drinking. The sky was pure and full of stars. A black frost was spreading.

  I went home at 1. The window was empty.

  Where were you? said Mother.

  I was at Midnight Mass.

  A regular saint, said Maisie.

  Happy Christmas, said my mother and she was smiling. She was filled with rare joy. We sat round talking and opening presents till all hours. Christmas cards were tucked into the gold surround of the mirror, along the mantel and into the picture frames. We said goodnight and the clocks were set for the morning. The fluorescent lights in the dining room flickered. Then in my room I discovered I’d lost the scarf and Sheila’s present.

  25 Wed. Christmas Day.

  Up at 8 for early Mass for Daddy then went out the lines to get my scarf but though I found the scarf no matter where I looked I could not find Sheila’s present. I sat on the platform, smoked a fag and looked down the lines. An east wind snapped at the bare trees. It was like I was waiting on a train. I tucked the white scarf into my blue gabardine and headed home by the Barrack Hill. The ball alley was empty. Dust flew round in a circle by the right-hand corner of the back wall. A mound of holly was nailed to Paddy Woods’ door. The town was deserted. Then suddenly the wind smacked the lines of overhead bulbs and bunting in Bridge Street, Smack! Smack! Smack! and in Main Street it was worse, they cracked as if we were in a ghost town, Smack! Crack! Click! Clickety Click!, the lines so taut it looked as if the string would snap, it felt dangerous, coloured bulbs burst, the whole street strained, the overhead lines of bulbs shook as the wind gusted, then eased, not a soul to be seen, even Santa was gone from the window, up into the attic until next year; Nod, just ask, Nod, anything, anything at all; there wasn’t a car, not a dog even, till young Brady appeared, dressed as a cowboy, he walked up Main Street with two six shooters at the ready, You’re dead, he said, you’re dead, he aimed at me and I ducked, the cap banged, I clutched my heart and he blew away an imaginary wisp of smoke, holstered his gun and said, See you partner, and he went back up Main Street clapping his arse at a trot, and he went into his house, and I went into mine, stood a moment in the deserted public dining room where the end tables with their false white marble tops were piled high with cold coats and hats and presents and I listened to the TV and the family inside chatting and laughing, opened the door and there they all were, Una, Maisie, mother – the ladies – once on the chairs round the table in its white linen, and then again repeated the other way round in the mirror. The mother clapped her knees.

  There you are, she said happily.

  The wanderer, nodded Maisie.

  And look at the corr on him.

  A regular slouch, agreed Maisie.

  And where were you? the mother asked.

  I took a walk round the town, I said.

  We, chirped Maisie as she cocked her glasses, are waiting on the Queen to make her appearance.

  Is that so, I said.

  Oh yes, she answered, she’s due out on the balcony at any minute and she turned aside to the TV.

  BOOK V

  It’s Lilac Time Again

  Chapter 29

  Mother is sitting in an armchair by her bed in the County Hospital where at eighty-eight she’s to have a scab removed from her head. She fell against a radiator two weeks ago in the bungalow in Cootehill where she retired after the Breifne closed. The move was made so that she and Maisie could be near Una who lives in a farmhouse down the road. Mother burned herself badly. She’d lain unable to get up for maybe an hour with her head resting against the boiling rad. She was found by my brother Tony and his wife Moira in the middle of the night.

  Moira went into her bedroom to see if she was all right but there was no one there. So she searched the house but couldn’t find her then she went back to the bedroom and heard this small cry. The mother was lying between her bed and the radiator. It would be the first of many falls. They had come home on holidays from Toronto to see her and went back in deep despair.

  At first the swelling from the blow disguised the burn, but in the out-patient’s today she was admitted for an operation. A wad of flesh will be taken from her thigh to fill the hole the burn made. Over the wound she wears a small white skullcap. They want to build her up for the operation, but she wants to go home. They won’t let her out, so now she’s refusing to eat.

  Get me out of here! she says.

  You’re getting better, says Mrs English, who is in bed across the ward from her.

  Oh yes, says the mother smiling sweetly, that’s right.

  Don’t leave me here, she commands me.

  I won’t.

  But you’re going.

  I have to go now, I say.

  To the play?

  Yes.

  On Broken Wings, she says to herself. She raises her voice. He’s making hundreds of pounds.

  Very good, says Mrs English.

  She takes my hand. Take me with you, can’t you.

  I would if I could.

  That’s right.

  Goodbye, I say.

  You look lovely, she says.

  Listen to that, says Mrs English.

  Blushing I get to my feet, and kiss her cheek and walk in the Farnham Road to the Town Hall in Cavan where a play of mine, named after a song she used to sing, is opening. The song is called On Broken Wings. She used sing it in the kitchen in Finea.

  *

  She sits opposite me in Cootehill, her eyes stalking the dark corridors of the subconscious.

  Bring me, she says, to the bed.

  Soon I will.

  Why had this to happen to me?

  You fell.

&
nbsp; That’s right. So take me, she says, down to Una’s.

  Una is away.

  Away where?

  America.

  America, she repeats, unconvinced.

  The repetitions are constant, with tears and implorations added. I know what she means and what she wants but I cannot provide the answer.

  Bring me to bed will ya?

  It’s too early.

  Bring me out for a meal.

  We’ll eat soon.

  Take me to my house.

  You’re in it.

  No I’m not.

  This is it, Errigal.

  Where is my house?

  Here mother.

  Well, bring me down for a meal there.

  In the other room, Maisie’s Japanese transistor is blaring.

  I can’t stand this, shouts my mother, I’m over eighty years of age, and she raises her eyes to heaven.

  I can’t stand it, she cries and her lips yammer. She shakes her dark-veined arthritic hands in despair. On the back of her head are two indentations where the blasted radiator burned into her skull.

  *

  This morning the plaster is torn off, taking a few grey hairs with it, so that the wound can be dressed. She lifts a hand towards the source of the pain. She kicks out at me. Yammers. Cries as the nurse dabs the scab.

  You’re hurting me, she cries. Oh God in Heaven. Why are you letting this happen to me?

  It has to be changed, I say.

  Why is she so rough. Hah?

  It’ll soon be over.

  So you say.

  *

  We sit here in a house she does not believe is home. At times I am no longer her son. We are all a cruel clique intent on denying her sleep, food, outings and peace.

  I lead her into the living room.

  Quite nice, isn’t it? says Maisie as she watches an Irish Country-and-Western song sung on the afternoon TV. These mammies’ boys charm her. And she is reassured to see that Derek Davies the presenter is there.

  There’s Derek now, she says. And he’s losing weight, you know.

  At ninety-two she knows them all – Miley in Glenroe, Gay Byrne of The Late Late show, Pat Kenny on Kenny Live, all the news announcers. Her glasses swing round surveying everything.

  The new county hospital in Cavan is beautiful, she asserts, as if she herself had been there.

  She talks about the nurses my mother met as if she’d seen them herself. She describes the doctors, the size of the building, the lawns, the flowers on the lawns. The bad-tempered night nurse. Mrs English.

  Mrs English was there?

  Amn’t I telling you, says my mother, reluctantly.

  And what was wrong with her?

  Her stomach.

  There now, says Maisie.

  Bit by bit by constant interrogation she has got the mother to describe all that happened her while she was away. Now the story has passed onto Maisie, and she that has rarely stirred outside the door in years tells it unerringly. Being behind closed doors does not stop Maisie’s curiosity. Once in the Eighties, blinded by cataracts, she took to the bed for five years, and survived on soup and Valium. Often we’d find her astray on the corridor of the Breifne feeling her way back to her room. We stopped the Valium, she did cold turkey, and we tricked her into hospital. Then, after the operation on her eyes, she came downstairs and took her place as if she’d never been away, Yous have all aged, she said, and started in where she’d left off, recounting things she’d never seen, but telling them so well you’d swear that she herself was there. In the same way she describes, with great exactitude, shops in Cootehill that she has never stood in. Marriages between people she never met are remembered. All that she hears from visitors is retold and sketched out and authenticated.

  While my mother is shedding reality, Maisie at over ninety is entering a new phase of complex embroidery of the tangible and the mysterious. Her heart in her mouth she hears talk of space, of astronauts. A moon walk makes her giddy and transcendent.

  It must be terrible – she shudders at the thought – to be up there.

  Poor Winnie, she says, looking across the table at her sister.

  *

  Despite the interrogations they rarely speak now. In fact Winnie can’t stand being in the same room as Maisie because she feels unable to look after her. After years of being cared for by my mother (because of that promise made to Great Aunt Jane), Maisie now finds herself removed from the centre of her sister’s world. But Maisie is at least still with us, rocking down the corridor on her steed – her walking aid – and kicking a tin can of piss ahead of her.

  The first thing she does when she wakes is reach to the radio. She flicks across stations thinking she’s moving the volume control. But she doesn’t care what the radio plays. It is her comforter. Anything might come out, Russian stations, heavy rock, classical music, ads, anything at all will do. Eating oranges with a distracted air she listens to the local radio station as it announces the selling prices for sheep and cattle and advertisements for mastitis.

  I watch her. She looks at me, focusing hard.

  You should dye your beard, she said, it’s going grey.

  I can’t dye my beard.

  Why not? And when you’re at it you get some highlights into that head of hair.

  Scour, says the radio. Lugworm. Redblood. Mange.

  *

  I’ve stolen so many of Maisie’s phrases over the years and inserted them into the mouths and minds of fictional characters that she herself has become a work of the imagination. She likes painted fingernails. She studies her fingernails. She looks at my mother who sits before her unfinished dinner, a bib to her neck, and her hands folded on her lap. The dessert sits untouched.

  You should eat for Dermot, Maisie says, raising her voice.

  Mind your own business, says my mother.

  What did she say? asks Maisie.

  She has no appetite, I reply.

  You shout eat, Maisie says, loud and clear.

  Let me out of here, barks my mother, and she flitters at her bib.

  Now look, says Maisie. You’ll knock something.

  Bah! says the mother and she shakes the saltcellar at Maisie.

  I lead the two women next door, Winnie to her armchair, Maisie to the sofa and then I put the TV on.

  The green dog is in the wrong place on the mantel, complains Maisie. There’s people in this house should have better things to do than disturbing arrangements.

  I move the china dog.

  Is that better? I ask.

  More.

  Now?

  There, she says. That’s better.

  Soon she’s falling asleep, tipping gently to her right-hand side. Nothing Maisie likes better than falling asleep to the comforting sound of the radio or the TV blaring. Soon the two sisters are sleeping. I steal a brandy. My mother’s mouth opens like a fledgling’s. Spit slips out the corner of Maisie’s lips. All I can be is a sweet memory that drifts through your mind, Jimmy Buckley sings, as if on cue, through their subconscious on Today at 3.

  I change the station. Immediately Maisie wakes, rights her glasses, looks at The Clash of the Titans that’s on the box, and then turns to me.

  What happened?

  Nothing.

  Something happened.

  I changed the station, I say.

  I thought so. And without so much as a by-your-leave. She studies the film. Burps quietly. Were you ever in the reptile house in London?

  Once I was, I think, I say.

  My God, if one of those snakes got a hold of you! She lifts her closed fists. They’d squeeze you. They’d squeeze you. It’s terrible.

  She returns to the box.

  Dreadful looking yokes, she says. What’s going on?

  A war.

  The same as usual, she nods. The night the orphans were burnt in the fire in the Poor Clares the windows of the Breifne were red hot. The poor things were trapped. It was terrible. Terrible! And she beat her thigh with a fist.r />
  In the commotion Mother wakes. She reaches for her beads, turns and sees me there.

  Where were you all day? she asks.

  I was here with you.

  I don’t believe you, she says smiling. And she takes my hand.

  Will you be sleeping here? she asks.

  I will.

  God bless you. She ponders her surroundings, gives Maisie a cursory glance and asks, What day is today?

  It’s Wednesday.

  And what time is it? she asks, scrutinizing her gold watch that doesn’t work.

  It’s seven forty-five.

  Look at the face, says Maisie watching the TV. Imagine wakening up and finding that beside you in the bed.

  What’s she talking about?

  The film, I shout.

  Trash, says my mother. Nothing but trash.

  In any case, says Maisie, there was this man Kayton, and he’d be out womanizing. Oh a dreadful carry on, she laughed.

  Jazzing, says my mother.

  And his wife’d be out looking for him. Your Uncle Jim used tell us all about it.

  More jazzing, adds the mother.

  Well, I suppose it takes all sorts.

  Give her a drink, says Winnie.

  She has one.

  What’s she saying? asks Maisie.

  She wants to know if you have a drink.

  I have.

  Well, nod your head to her.

  Who, asks Maisie, do you think I am, Father Christmas?

  Just nod your head, Maisie.

  If you must.

  She nods. One two three nods. My mother throws her an oblique eye.

  What’s wrong with her? she asks.

  She’s saying Yes.

  Yes, that’s right, agrees Maisie. I’m nodding like the Santa used be in the window.

  Mother shakes her head in disbelief.

  Wow, she says.

  What? asks Maisie.

  That’s right, says Mother.

  What are you trying to tell me?

  Mother rattles her heels.

  Nothing but whispering, she says. Whispering Rufus! She raises her eyes to heaven and spots me again. When is your next book coming out? she asks.