When All Is Said(36)

‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ she said after a bit. ‘It’s time for my bed, anyway.’

She removed her hands from my cocoon, leaving one to rest for a second on mine before getting up.

I sat in her seat, gathering up the warmth she had left, and watched her disappear through the door, her walk more noticeably stooped in recent months. I wondered how hard it was for her seeing one son pass life’s milestones, while her other, cold in the ground, never got the chance. I felt a bit put out, if I’m honest, about how she was that evening. There I was, loyal and hardworking, had just brought home the best-looking woman this side of the Irish Sea, who was delightful and clever, but her conversation was all about Tony. ’Course I felt the guilt of that thought as soon as it entered my head. I sat arguing with it for a while before shrugging it away in disgust at myself, at my mother and at the world.

It wasn’t until after the wedding, when Sadie moved in, and the lower room became ours, what with my sisters gone by then, that Sadie began to see how Tony’s loss lingered in everything we did in the place. It clung in the very air, his name an afterthought of every sentence we spoke, until the day my mother died and she took its potency with her. We were left with a sorrow for her passing and Tony’s and my father’s that felt normal, if you understand me – it was sorrow, simple uncomplicated sorrow.

I was proud on that first visit to Donegal to hear Sadie speak of my family and our lives as if we were special. Her efforts to impress her father seemed to be having little effect, however. And to be truthful, I couldn’t stand all that praise for much longer. In an attempt to distract her, I asked of her sister, Noreen.

‘Noreen not about so, out on the town, what?’

Now here’s the issue I had with all of what was to follow: had a sister of mine been mentally unwell, I think I would’ve found the time to tell your mother before she waded in and made a complete fool of herself in front of my parents. I’d told her about Tony after all and she knew to tread lightly. But no, in her wisdom, she had told me nothing about Noreen. My foolish, innocent question hung there, like a grenade with the pin pulled out. I saw the panic. Michael looked at me like I was some new specimen of gobshite. Sadie couldn’t even turn her head but stared at the tea in her cup, her hands gripping the saucer in her lap. While her mother glared at her daughter, wondering how she had brought such a man into their home.

‘I told you, Maurice, I did! I told you our Noreen was a wee bit soft,’ she whispered, as soon as her parents left the room. Embarrassed by the whole affair, they’d gone to gather their coats and things for the afternoon visit to Saint Catherine’s where your Auntie Noreen was living, apparently. I was livid.

‘Yes, but I thought you meant sensitive, you know touchy. And what’s more, you didn’t tell me she lived in the local asylum!’ That bit, a little louder than I’d intended.

‘Would you keep your voice down.’ Her hands flapped at me as she looked anxiously towards the half-open door. ‘I thought I had. Honestly!’ she continued, whispering again. ‘And in fairness, that only happened recently, just before I met you, in fact. I’ve only been getting my own head around it. Mammy just couldn’t cope any more. What with her hitting and all. And with Daddy out working and me away, well, they’d no choice.’

‘What’s wrong with her anyway – what do they call it?’ I asked, my exasperation and voice mellowing on hearing what the family had been through.

‘Melancholy, they say. And don’t ask me what it means. All I know is she gets very down and can lash out when things aren’t going her way. She was lovely as a wee one, a really cute little sister. I wish there was a picture to show you but we only have this family one. She’s thirteen there,’ she said, crossing the room and taking down a photo that sat on the mantelpiece. She studied it as if she’d not seen it in a long time, handing it to me. ‘You can see it in her, can’t you? The distractedness, the not all thereness.’

‘So when did she start being like that? Did she go to school?’

‘For a year or so. But she used to get so upset at the others. If they’d use her pencil or rubber, she just couldn’t take it. That was enough. They knew then she was easy prey. Cruel, they were. Threw stuff at her in the playground or on the way home just to rise her. She’d be raging, crying and shouting. It was too much for her and me, to tell you the truth. The day Mammy and Daddy decided they wouldn’t send her there any more was the happiest day of my life. Isn’t that just an awful thing to say? But I couldn’t have been more relieved. Not having to defend her and protect her any more. I could just … be free of her.’

Those final words were said so quietly that I almost missed them. A small little whimper escaped between the fingers she’d raised to her lips. I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her to me and kissed her head. The sound of her parents’ preparations in the distance moved towards us at a steady pace. Sadie ran from the room, out through the adjoining kitchen and the back door. I rose to follow but wasn’t quick enough.

‘Right, so. We’d better go,’ her mother said, standing at the sitting-room door, with Michael behind her. ‘Noreen normally expects us at three. She likes us to be on time. Where’s Sadie?’

‘She just popped out to the yard there. Said she’ll be back in a second.’