Lying in Wait(29)

‘It’s what your father would want,’ said Granny Fitz, arriving with a large suitcase, as if that settled everything. Aunt Rosie, Uncle Finn, the doctor and the headmaster agreed. My mother was taken to St John of God’s one day while I was at school. When I got home, Granny was sweeping up broken glass, so I guessed that my mother had not gone without a fight.

Granny Fitz was seventy-seven years old, physically fit and mentally sharp. When I was a small child, she had doted on me. I was her first grandchild and she couldn’t spend enough time with me. She lauded all my early achievements and boasted about me to her friends. Mum and she fought over me like I was a puppy. But where Mum indulged my every whim, Granny was stricter. She was appalled by how much weight I had gained over the last year and had berated my mother for feeding me so carelessly. With Mum now out of the way, she ran our home like an army camp. I hated it, hated the fact that she was there, treating me like a child. I was desperately worried that my mother would never be well enough to come home. I escaped to Helen’s house as often as I could, partly for the company and the kissing and the possibility of more, but largely because I ran the chance of a decent-sized meal and some proper TV shows. I could always scrounge a mini-pizza or a Vesta curry. I met her floral famous-poet mum. She looked like Helen, not even that much older really. She was a hippy who chain-smoked and spoke in a deep voice. She drank beer from the bottle. When she wasn’t writing, she worked as an editor for a literary journal and hung out with long-haired, denim-clad men, who would be there from time to time. I had met Helen’s little brothers by then; they were raucous and foul-mouthed like Helen, but were welcoming and friendly. ‘Jesus Christ, look at the size of you!’ said the oldest boy the first time I met him. The younger one sniggered behind his hands. It was worth it if it meant a mini-pizza or a slice of toast with the obligatory cup of tea.

Granny Fitz didn’t like Helen. She said she was ‘uncouth’ and ‘common’. I concede she was probably uncouth, but she definitely wasn’t common. There were not too many girls like Helen. She and I met up in a pub a few times, but Granny smelled alcohol on my breath and tried to ground me. She belittled my outrage and insistence that I was an adult and could legally drink now, challenging me to earn the money to pay for it. She didn’t know about the cheques my mother had signed. Granny insisted that I needed to study and that I should put Helen ‘on ice’ until after the exams. I agreed that I would only see her at weekends, but I lied and said I was going to the library when I went to see Helen during the week.

Under Granny’s regime, there was four months of food rationing, restricted pocket money and enforced labour. After the first six weeks, we kind of got used to each other. We lived in an atmosphere of mutual intolerance, but as time went on we became almost cordial. I put it down to Stockholm syndrome. The IRA hunger strikes were in the news. I wondered if my grandmother was making some kind of political point with our tiny meals. There was nothing that drove Granny Fitz to distraction more than seeing me seated, particularly in front of the television. I was allowed only to watch Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons and The Angelus. Everything else was off-limits. The only other time I was allowed to sit down was to study.

I don’t know why I could no longer study, but I had just lost interest. There didn’t seem to be any point to it any more. I was anxious about my mother, and Annie Doyle was still haunting my dreams. So when I was sent to study, I mostly just wrote mad fantasy stories in which I was saving Annie Doyle, or going for dinner with Annie Doyle, or having sex with Annie Doyle. I kept the Marnie bracelet under my pillow. If only Granny had known. She invented jobs to keep me on my feet. She had me digging up hedges through permafrost in February, carrying rubbish from the attic to the shed at the end of the garden, and then back up again. She offered me as a dog walker to a dotty old neighbour.

Granny Fitz made no secret of the fact that she thought my mother was weak and selfish. Granny had lost a son, her ‘flesh and blood’, and ‘you don’t see me languishing in an institution, leaving a poor child to fend for himself’. I suppose I must give her some credit for acting in what she thought were my best interests. She must have known that I despised her by my permanently surly mood and scowling expression, but she ignored my bad attitude and put a lock on the fridge. Once or twice I heard her sniffing or crying, but when I came into the room she would quickly dab her eyes and bark an order at me. I realized that she was mourning her son.

I visited Mum every week and complained bitterly about Granny, but my mother wasn’t really able to respond in any meaningful way, not for ages. I would try to remind her of happier times and point out all the charms on her bracelet to remind her of the significance of each one, but there never seemed to be any visible improvement. I worried that she might never recover. She would sit beside me and stroke my face and smile at me like a blind person might. The medication was doing its thing, I suppose, allowing her mind to heal.

Eventually, she began to engage a little bit, talking about the stories in the newspapers and the TV shows she watched. She was growing painfully thin and complained of not being able to sleep because of her new medication. She gradually began to notice me again. She wanted to get better. She was terrified of being locked up for ever.

One day she told me, ‘At least there’ll be no more miscarriages. Now that Dad’s gone.’ Her eyes brimmed.

‘I’ll look after you, Mum,’ I promised.