Malarky (36 page)

They're both off: the neighbour, he's interrupting. She wants to hear more, more about the women who attend to themselves so well. Spain talks on about Spain and Beirut is off
again on Beirut. Their voices compete over a woman opposite who the nurses are hoovering something out of with a suction machine behind a pulled curtain. They shout at each other over the noisy machine. Bread, bakery, pan loaf, Spain, weather, bread, pan loaf, bakery.

—The bakeries! I never tasted bread like what I had there. I think Beirut's the best bread in the world.

—Ah here, hold on a minute. There's no bread as good as our bread. A pan loaf. Nothing on earth defeats it. Spain rolls down the top sheet of the bed, like he'll go to war over bread.

Others pick up on the bread talk: batch or pan loaf or Pat The Baker. Wholewheat might be good for you but it gets stuck in the teeth of the quiet man down the end. It gets stuck in my teeth and it's days to
get it
out. I can't
ate it
any more. I haven't the
mouth for
it, states another.

But Beirut was adamant.

—No, no. There's no bread in this country only leather it is. I never got a pain in my stomach the whole time I was in Beirut. Beirut puts his fingers in his ears and raises his voice. Repeating I never got a pain in my stomach the whole time I was in Beirut. The women wear golden shoes. I never got a pain . . .

—Tell me again about the hills. She pleads with Beirut. Are they all around you? She wants his attention back to her. And he's off about the hills, painting the panorama, any panorama for she'll take anything he gives her. The arc of any tale can cross this ward and be sucked in by her brain.

Spain predicted a cup of tea was on the way. And Johnny, who was moved yesterday, Johnny is two rooms over, he told everyone. No one answers. One man is stuck on his teeth, Beirut and she are away in the hills. Spain rolls, pulls up the cover and sulks.

—Youse are all nuts in here and I don't know why I am on this ward. I've asked them to move me. I'm going to ask to be
moved. I'm moving rooms out of here, away from ye all, he yells. No one hears Spain. Beirut's voice rose.

—Do ya know a strange thing about Beirut, the whole time I was there I never saw a single person moving house. Isn't that strange? You'd expect it you know. They are always moving in Dublin I find. Nobody moves in Beirut. They sit still and look at the hills.

The tea lady arrives, everyone is distracted by the number of sugars, the spoon stirs. Only she and Beirut do not take tea.

—Did I ever tell you about the dogs in Beirut? He asks her.

—No, she says, and I'd love to hear about them.

Strangely he never carries on with the dogs. He never tells her anything further about the dogs.

She requests. But he doesn't answer.

—Beirut, she hums out to him, can you hear me at all Beirut?

—I can, he says, arra I can. I can hear you. But he never says any more than the dogs in Beirut aren't like Irish dogs. Their legs are longer.

—Why aren't youse havin' tea? Spain demands.

Sometimes at night on the ward when she cannot sleep because Bina insists she is not to be given sleeping pills, she calls out to Beirut. Beirut, are you awake? Tell me more. Sometimes he answers her but usually the nurse comes and asks what's wrong? What has her shouting? Beirut sleeps soundly because he doesn't have Bina waving the hammer at them for him. They're doping Beirut, she thinks. They're trying to kill him. They want to shut him up. They want to shut us all up. They don't want Beirut to tell me the things he's come here to tell me.

Apparently they claimed they found her in Beirut's bed. She refuted it.

—A lot of nonsense, she said. I wouldn't get out of the bed and leave my slippers behind. I am careful about my feet. Ask my husband when he comes, he'll tell you how cold my feet get that I couldn't let them escape out of socks and slippers. I never went near him and I don't hear a complaint out of him. Go on and ask him!

Beirut said she never came near him.

They could do nothing about it.

She was surprised when Beirut's visitor came. A squat woman, wearing a headscarf, who waves her hands plenty and keeps up a long stream of rabid speculating that bounces wall to wall around the ward. She calls him Martin John
¹
and Our Woman decides it's not a good name for him.

—Oh Martin John, whatever you do don't talk to them, don't get familiar, you're always getting yourself on friendly terms with the wrong types.

She's glancing, his visitor is darting glances across. But Our Woman just smiles and thinks of hills and bakeries and gold-sprayed shoes on the end of sun-tanned feet.

—They've a great colour to them, Beirut calls out ignoring the stream out of his visitor, the women in Beirut because they're not stuck indoors the whole day the way we are.

—Nurse, nurse, nurse. His visitor shrieks. She crosses herself and shrieks again. He's off agin. Nurse could you stop
him before he does any more damage to himself. Can you give him something to stop it? He's off agin on Bayroot. The Lord save us from it. I don't want him goin' on about the wimmin agin.

She's a headscarf tied around her, that's slipping, and has now sunk to the bottom of her hair. Patches of her hair are thinned and gone. No wonder, Our Woman thinks, no wonder he's gone mad for the women of Beirut, sure look at the state of her. When the visitor finally leaves, Our Woman watches the back of her legs, which are encased into dark, dignified stockings, that don't disguise the angry, bulging veins of her left leg and the drag of that foot. There's something very angry about that foot, Our Woman thinks.

He's very quiet for a while, but the sniffing shows he's upset.

—She doesn't like it when I talk about Beirut. It's why they've put me in here. But I don't understand it, I don't understand it. Are ya a-mother yerself? She doesn't understand. I'd a beautiful time in Beirut, but I am not to talk about it anymore. Would you do that?

—I wouldn't. I would not. My own son was in Afghanistan and if he came back I would stay up for days to hear his stories.

—Is that right? Tell me, tell me everything you know about Afghanistan. Tell me all of it.

—I don't know much, Our Woman says. I don't know anything at all. She breaks off.

—Would he write your son?

—Not really, her voice begins to trail. It's very hard. Sure I've nothing to go on.

Spain, in the next bed, is angry.

—Youse are too lowd. Youse are too fookin lowd.

Spain turns over and pulls his sheet up to his ears.

Our Woman's learnt not to interrupt, just to let Beirut carry on. For if she interrupts he's back to the beginning again, back to the golden shoes and the headscarves. She hopes he'll say something about the vegetables in Beirut or whether they take hoovering seriously.

The only question she asks is does he know anything about Afghanistan?

—I do, he says. The bread is very good there. A flat bread it is. There's a lot of tribal problems. If she's planning a holiday he recommends Beirut.

—Does he know there's a war on there?

—No, I hadn't heard that. It musta started since I am in this place.

—No it's been several years, she says. Since the planes in America. It started after the planes.

—That was a terrible business, he says before raising the perplexing question with her of whether it rains in Beirut. Would you think it rains there? Would ya?

—Arra it must.

—You're right, you're absolutely right. It did rain when I was there, but it's not a rain you'd be disappointed in, the way you would an English or an Irish rain. It's not a rain that would get ya down.

My hip is stiff and painful now. I might never get up from here. This could be it. Over and out. It helps to think about Beirut. I'll go back over it again to keep the cold from creeping in on me.