Emerald Germs of Ireland (3 page)

Pat flushed ever so slightly—simply because he was a little confused.

“Mrs. Tubridy—what?” he asked her.

“If you fell,” Mrs. Tubridy explained. “Is that how she’d do it—to ease your pain, I mean?”

There was something about Mrs. Tubridy’s voice that made Pat feel uneasy.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy. Mrs. Tubridy, I think you’d better go,” he said.

In the succeeding moments, the moon seemed exceptionally, unaccountably large. And there was a quality to the darkness he hadn’t noticed before. It seemed a long time before Mrs. Tubridy made any reply. And when she did, it was as follows: “Go, Pat?” in a faintly aggressive, noncompliant tone.

The crimson shade of Pat’s cheeks was now quite pronounced.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy. In case the neighbors might be talking.”

Pat expected the pressure exerted by Mrs. Tubridy’s fingers to become somewhat relieved at this—but this did not happen. In fact, if anything, it could be said to have increased.

“Talking, Pat?” Mrs. Tubridy replied. “But sure, Pat—I’m an old woman.”

A flushed, discomfiting confusion began to gather within Pat’s mind. Words appeared to elude him, and it was only with supreme effort he succeeded in making the reply, “I know that, Mrs. Tubridy. But you know what they’re like. They imagine things. They make things up.”

Pat felt the cloth being relocated to a spot directly above his eye.

“Does it hurt here?” Mrs. Tubridy said softly. “Will I rub it just a littler more?”

What exactly happened in the intervening seconds is unclear. What is apparent is that somehow Pat broke free and found himself standing above the older woman, clearly in a state of tremulous anxiety now.

“Mrs. Tubridy!” he cried, his voice quivering like a lost leaf in a countryside-denuding storm, “I’m afraid you’ll have to go!”

There followed a silence and then Mrs. Tubridy lowered her head and said softly, yieldingly, “Very well—I’ll just go get my umbrella.”

A wave of remorse—infinitely larger than the one which had conveniently provided him with courage earlier on—crashed through Pat.

“Mrs. Tubridy!” he groaned. “It’s just that—”

“Yes, Pat—I know,” came the reply.

As she was going past the hat stand in the hallway, Pat picked at his fingernail and said, “Good night then, Mrs. Tubridy.” The older woman adjusted her coat and said, “Good night, Pat.”

It was only as she was opening the front door to venture out into the quiet night of the sleeping town and its surrounding countryside that she turned and said tenderly, “You know, Pat—you know your mother’s a very lucky woman. Drunk or no, you could be one of the nicest young fellows in the town. You always were. You know that, don’t you, Pat?”

A twinge of uncertainty nagged at Pat as she spoke. But nonetheless he managed a reply.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy.”

“She loved you, Pat,” continued Mrs. Tubridy. “I know—because she told me. ‘I love Pat,’ she said, ‘my son Pat.’”

Pat found himself choking a little.

“Mrs. Tubridy …” he began.

Mrs. Tubridy’s voice was soft as downy feathers now.

“‘He’s the nicest little fellow ever I carried in my stomach,’” she said,” ‘ I don’t care who makes a laugh of him.’”

“Please, Mrs. Tubridy …,” said Pat, a trifle dizzy now.

It was some moments before he realized at all that Mrs. Tubridy’s fingers were in his hair, running through it ever so gently. Her lips soft and warm close to his ear as she said, “Why did you do it, Pat? Did you have an argument with her?”

An imaginary icy hand placed its hand flat on Pat’s back.

“Do what, Mrs. Tubridy?” he replied, endeavoring to be noncommittal.

Mrs. Tubridy lowered her head as if disappointed.

“Oh, Pat, Pat,” she said, adding with disorienting swiftness. “Was she upsetting you?”

A fully formed tear shone in Pat’s right eye as he replied, “Yes, Mrs. Tubridy. She was. She wouldn’t leave me alone.”

The older woman moved exceptionally close to him and said, “I wouldn’t upset you, Pat. As long as you did what I said. As long as you were my nice litde boy. Would you be that, Pat? Would you? And then I wouldn’t have to tell them all the litde things I know about you. I wouldn’t have to tell them not to whisper a word about it. Not so much as a word about it all. Wouldn’t that be lovely, Pat?”

Already some of the tear was drying on Pat’s cheek. His right one.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy,” he said.

“And you’d never touch that horrible old stuff again?”

“No, Mrs. Tubridy.”

“Never go near Sullivan’s as long as you live.”

“No, Mrs. Tubridy.”

“Does your head hurt, Pat?”

Mrs. Tubridy pressed a soft spot which was located directly above his left eye.

“Horrible ugly drink!” she said, and squeezed it again.

It was some days later and Pat was busier than ever, cleaning out cupboards and trying to get everything done before dinner. Mrs. Tubridy’s voice came ringing clear and uncompromising from the scullery. “And don’t forget that other one! I see one hidden away in at the back there! Do you hear me, Pat McNab?”

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy,” replied Pat, as his fingers closed around the last remaining whiskey bottle located in the nether darkness at the rear of the cupboard. He added it to the contents of his Dumpster and pushed the glittering container of redundant glass out into the backyard, where it would be collected the following day by the garbage-men. He remained resolutely silent as Mrs. Tubridy stood over him ensuring that each receptacle was added to the mound of glass whose peak was now level with the top of the gate. When she was satisfied, she smiled contentedly and said, “Well, Pat! That’s the last we’ll see of them!”

Pat nodded compliantly and rubbed his hands on his apron.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy,” he said.

Mrs. Tubridy smiled and placed her smooth, moistened hand on his cheek. She used Pond’s Cold Cream.

“More than your mother was able to do, Pat, at the end of the day!”

Two things happened in between Mrs. Tubridy making this statement and Pat making a reply. A small bird landed on a twig above Mrs. Tubridy’s head and a blue Fiat went by on the road. They had distracted Pat for a moment. Then he heard himself saying, “What?” to be greeted with the short, not quite peremptory but certainly cursory response: “Oh—and would you clear out the coal house too when you’re finished, Pat—I meant to say that to you.”

The taste at the back of Pat’s throat was sickly as he obsequiously slouched toward the flapping door of the coal house.

It was the following day when he was doing the vacuum-cleaning that he looked up to see Mrs. Tubridy putting her head around the door. “Pat? Are you there?” he heard her say.

“Yes I am, Mrs. Tubridy,” he replied, scooping up some dust which had gathered in behind the armchair close to the leg of the sideboard.

“I have a surprise for you-oo!” he heard her trill.

Pat jerked ever so slightly as the older woman entered the room
bearing a tray upon which stood triumphantly a bottle of Taylor Keith lemonade and two glasses.

“Now, Pat!” she said. “Put that vacuum cleaner down and come over here to me! Put it down now, Pat!”

Pat could hear various acids coursing about deep within his stomach as Mrs. Tubridy raised one of the glasses in a toast and declared, “For all your hard work!” Her eyes seemed to dance as she gazed toward him, eagerly eliciting a reply. Which, eventually, he supplied, to wit, “Yes, Mrs. Tubridy.”

At which point the older woman frowned.

“Pat—there something wrong?” she said. “Aren’t you pleased?”

Yes, Mrs. Tubridy. I’m pleased,” said Pat.

You don’t look pleased to me, with that long face on you like a donkey. Is there something wrong with it? Is there something wrong with the lemonade I got specially below in Kinch’s for you?”

Pat’s eyelashes drooped.

“No, Mrs. Tubridy. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Well—drink it, then!” she insisted. “Drink it like a Christian, can’t you!”

Pat’s lips advanced and began to apply themselves to a tentative sip of the sparkling liquid. But this apparently did not satisfy the older woman, and to his horror Pat found the glass flying out of his grasp as her small pudgy hand hit it, and her words bit into him.

“No!” she barked. “It’s not good enough for you when I do it but if it was her you’d be gurgling away there like a half-wit till it choked you, wouldn’t you?”

“If it was who, Mrs. Tubridy?” Pat replied, almost shamefully, although he had nothing to be ashamed about.

Her response was astonishing as she faced him with an expression blank as the mirror on the bedroom wall.

“If it was who! If it was who! I’ll put a stop to your gallop yet and make no mistake, if you don’t stop playing the flyboy with me! I suppose you think you’re going to sneak bottles back in behind my back—I suppose that’s the little plan you have in mind!”

“No!” cried Pat. “No, Mrs. Tubridy—it’s not true!”

But she was having none of it.

“Just like him and every one of them!” she snapped inexplicably. “Pack of useless God’s cursed crowd of wasters, ne’er-do-wells, and gangsters! Stay away from the Tubridys, they have the hand out for everything they can get! I should have listened to my poor mother, God rest her! Rue the day! Rue the day, you will, she said! God but how she was right! Beat me black and blue he did! I’ll give it up, alanna, on my mother’s grave I’ll never touch another drop! Bruises the size of that on my back and on my legs! But you wait! You needn’t think you’ll get up to the same tricks, Mr. Pat McNab, for you won’t! Do you hear me, you treacherous litde pup, you?”

Out of nowhere, her hands began to beat Pat about the head like small, out-of-control birds. He pleaded in vain. “No, Mrs. Tubridy! Stop, stop!” he cried.

“You’ll not do what he did to me, nor any of your crowd!” she continued. “For I won’t give you the chance—I’ll do what I should have done long ago! Do you hear me? Do you hear me, Pat McNab?”

Fearfully, Pat replied, “Yes, Mrs. Tubridy!”

“Now get up them stairs and do the bedrooms,” she insisted. “Do you hear me?”

His reply—predictable by now—was in the affirmative. The older woman composed herself.

“And when I come up—if I find so much as a speck of dirt! If I find so much as a speck of—”

Pat interrupted her.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy,” he said.

“Now! Go on!” she icily instructed.

The moon shone on the window. Mrs. Tubridy was asleep now. Or so Pat thought as he lay there in his striped pajamas, consumed by a huge, ocean-sized sadness. Until he heard the whisper, “Pat?”

His response was timid—fearful, even. But it need not have been.

“Yes?” he said.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” said Mrs. Tubridy, abstractedly adjusting a curler beneath her hair net.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Tubridy,” said Pat.

She coughed—ever so politely. She could be so polite sometimes, Mrs. Tubridy.

“I know you’re not like him.”

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy.”

“But, Pat—you know something? He wasn’t always like that either.”

Pat’s eyes nervously followed the Ganges-like crack on the ceiling.

“Was he not, Mrs. Tubridy?” he said.

“He used to come marching down the aisle after Communion with a lovely quiff in his hair and a black tie and there wasn’t a woman in the town but didn’t have her eye on him. Including—”

Mrs. Tubridy broke off abruptly. The moon’s light fell on the little carved feet of the wardrobe. The silence fed upon itself until Pat said, “Hmm, Mrs. Tubridy?”

“Including your own mother,” Mrs. Tubridy said.

Pat’s heart leaped.

“My own mother, Mrs. Tubridy?”

Pat could feel Mrs. Tubridy’s body tensing up as she prepared herself to speak.

“She used to think she could get him. The way she thought she could get everybody. But she didn’t get him. He never let on he seen her.”

Pat frowned and felt his mouth go dry.

“Never let on …?”

“I used to go by with my arm in his—and the face of her!”

“The face of her, Mrs. Tubridy?”

“Lepping, Pat! She used to be absolutely lepping with rage! Couldn’t bear to think of anyone wiping her eye! Must have thought she was Rita Hayworth or someone, the eejit! Sure he never even so much as let on he seen her!”

Pat construed his mouth being filled up with a substance not unlike glue or perhaps, thick tasteless preserves.

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy,” he said, crestfallen.

“But you liked her, didn’t you, Pat?” said Mrs. Tubridy, adding more forcefully. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Tubridy,” Pat replied.

“Even though she didn’t look after you right—you still liked her.”

A piece of wire seemed to tighten itself around the top of Pat’s chest.

“No, Mrs. Tubridy—she did look after me right.”

“No, Pat, she didn’t. She’d give you soup and a potato when she should have been cooking you a dinner. A dinner with mash and gravy and a nice wee bit of meat. Instead of doing that she’d be up and down the town trying to get other women’s men to look at her. Either that or tramping off to the bingo again.”

Pat’s resolve appeared to momentarily stiffen.

“Mrs. Tubridy—you go to the bingo yourself.”

Her balled fist placed itself behind his shoulder blades. A slight push dislodged him.

“What did you say? That I go to the bingo? But I don’t have wains, do I, Pat McNab? I don’t have a little boy whose future is my responsibility! I don’t have a litde boy to leave behind and see to it that he grows up quare on account of my neglect! I don’t have him, you know!”

This was more than Pat could endure. He cried aloud in the moon-washed darkness: “I’m not quare!”

Mrs. Tubridy’s reply was instant.

“No! You’re not now! And thanks to me you won’t be! You’ll be one of the best-looking, handsomest men in the town! I’ll see to it you drive them all mad, you wait and see! By the time I’m finished with you, they’ll all want to be Pat McNab! Instead of being a poor wee gom with the whole place laughing at you, the way she had you growing up!”

“It’s not true, Mrs. Tubridy!” cried Pat pitifully. “She had not!”