When All Is Said(66)
‘Just a little bite, Markie, and then you can have the jelly.’
‘Our Kevin would be at that too,’ Sadie said, putting her cup down on its saucer. Her elbow rested on the table now, her head at a tilt, leaning on her hand, watching the woman’s pitiful attempts at getting some goodness into her son.
‘You should try mushing up the veg so he can’t see it.’
The mother gave a tight-lipped smile.
‘I even used to mix it up in his custard. Kevin loved custard.’
A carrot already cut in two was halved again and waved in front of Markie’s mouth, then nudged at the gripped lips.
‘Just this tiny bit, pet.’
‘You could blitz it in a blender.’
Markie was by now sticking his fingers into his jelly and licking them enthusiastically while his mother sat back practically in tears.
‘’Course Kevin is at that himself now, trying to con the greens into his own. What goes around comes around, I told him.’
‘Jesus,’ I muttered under my breath. But she refused to look my way. ‘I’ll be in the car. I’ll see you there when you’ve finished with your parenting tips,’ I added, rising and leaving her to it.
She didn’t take to the bedroom when we got home like I’d expected. But she never spoke a word to me. Flitted about the place like I wasn’t there. In and out of the sitting room the whole day. I couldn’t tell you what she was at. But what I do know is that when I sat to the kitchen table later for tea, no cup and saucer sat at my place. I watched her pour her own and let the pot rest back down on the coaster. She didn’t lift her head once. In the end, I got my own cup and found my very own pot after about ten minutes of searching. We finished our meal in total silence, refilling our cups from pots that sat like two canons pointing at each other across the divide.
This afternoon, after I’d finished the first four courses of my meal – sorbet they gave me, not for the dessert, right after the starter – I waved Felix down.
‘Earl Grey,’ I said to him. ‘Give me a pot of Earl Grey.’
When I took the first sip, the liquid scalded the top of my mouth. It felt like she was sitting in the room, glaring at me as I drank, reminding me that it was far too late to make recompense for my sins now.
Casey’s, that was the place in Dublin.
* * *
Ours was always a difficult relationship when it came to our wealth. Individually our views were clear: I loved it, she despised it. For the sake of our marriage, therefore, it rarely got discussed. I felt bad tainting her with it. She never knew what we had in the bank or how much land we really owned. And when she did happen across some revealing paperwork, she just handed it straight to me like it was a dirty sock I’d dropped on the carpet.
On a Friday at tea, I’d leave the weekly amount for all the shopping and whatever else she needed against the teapot. I’d never even see her take it. I’d look up at some stage and it’d be gone, into her apron pocket. But here’s the funniest thing, when I began to clear away some of her bits after she died – well, when I say ‘clear’ I more rummaged through them, reluctant as I was to part with even a thread – I kept finding money. She must never have spent all I gave. Never bothered sticking it in the bank or the credit union account. Trusted it instead to the pockets of old cardigans and dressing gowns and an old box that held your childhood drawings. Rainy day, I suppose. I must’ve found seven thousand in all. Don’t ask me, son, I’ve no idea.
In all our years I never stopped wanting her. Never. Not for one moment. Not for one second. I watched her skin survive the years, softly, folding upon itself. I touched it often, still hopelessly loving every bit of her, every line that claimed her, every new mark that stamped its permanency. We had our tough times like everyone else, but through it all I never looked at anyone else. Never desired another.
My hands begin to shake when I think over it all, son. Can I, hand on heart, say that I did my best for her?
‘Moanie Maurice,’ she used to call me in the latter years. But the awful truth of it is I would have been a thousand times worse without her. I could almost feel it as I walked through the door, the armour slipping away as she took my coat or kissed me on the cheek or put her hand to my back as she laid my dinner down. Jesus, son, I should have told her every feckin’ day what a marvel she was.
I’ve stopped sleeping, have I told you? Two hours, three if I’m lucky now and then I’m awake. Staring at the ceiling, going over it again, this bloody decision, because although I know it’s time to go, son, it’s still hard. Even now, there’s a little part of me that wonders am I doing the right thing at all. There was a woman in her eighties somewhere in England, so desperately lonely that she sat at her kitchen table and put an empty bag of frozen spinach over her head and suffocated herself. I mean, when I heard that I just thought, is that me, is that what it’s really come to?
* * *
I get off the stool and shove these quaking wrinkled hands deep down in my pockets. I need to move. I need to shake this off me.
‘Wait there,’ I say to my refilled glass as I take to the corridor again. Head down, I count: twenty-seven flowers in the carpet, six pairs of passing shoes, one fallen abandoned napkin. Swishing skirts and high-pitched voices filled with the night’s excitement pass me but make no impression. This place could be on fire and I wouldn’t give a damn now.