Malarky (5 page)

—How, she said of her husband, then how does he start? Where does he begin?

The Red-Nailed Twit lifts her right hand and indicates her left nipple.

But missing the cue, the cue to plead for forgiveness, excuse herself to the toilet, to allow Our Woman a dignified exit, Red the Twit carried on.

But .
. . that didn't bother me, it was his other business. At this she passed a hand around the back of herself, maybe heading lower than her kidneys, Our Woman is not entirely sure.

The licking!

She sucked air in, an astonished respiration, and gave a cherry-giggled smile. I've never met one of those before! A licker! Another cherry glint in her eyes.
I thought
he was doggy
at first,'til it started
.
At first I was shocked, but
I grew used to it
. And here. She indicates her armpit. He was always hosing me here.

Our Woman has sunk into perplexity. She tries to visualize her husband at the back of this woman conducting himself in this manner. Our Woman examined the new exhibit before her, the crinoline armpit.

She was practical, Our Woman.

—Sorry, exactly what was he putting in your armpit?

His thing, she giggled. His dirty thing, of course.

Our Woman tried to calculate how it might fit: oblong, side or straight.

At first
I thought he was
going for
me
mouth .
. . and I am fussy about me mouth.

Red ceased, praise the Roman soldiers she ceased. Realized from Our Woman's face that shock had been absorbed. Our Woman had begun her lift from the table, but the twit entreated her,

What I done with him was
wrong –
very wrong. But I want you to
know it
was all me, all me, not your husband. Except the first time. It was him
the first
time, of course it was him
the first
time, but every time since it was me, me, me.
I want you
to know the Lord has taken me in and I am working
hard for
him and I am atoning. I volunteer. I do the flowers and the hoovering. I wash the tea towels and I want you to do me
a favour.

Our Woman offered only silence.

Would you
please forgive your husband?
I want you to. He doesn't deserve it. It was all me.

Mere seconds and there was a rustle. The table cloth dragged suddenly away from Our Woman. Instinctively she lifted her hand as it pulled, to let it go, and thus the table cloth and the Red Twit flopped back, chair sideways over and to the floor. The attention of the room turned to the table because the pot of tea was all over Our Woman's lap, but the focus was on the Red-Nailed Twit, she had passed out. The eejit was out cold.

Quick they were to water and ambulance. She was around by the time the ambulance men arrived and answering their questions. Yes lightheaded. No hadn't eaten. Fasting. 72 hours approx. A
religious fast
. No, no not Ramadan. Jesus. Our Lord. She's a Christian.

Was Our Woman, nearby mopping her legs and skirt, a relative? No, no, Our Woman shook. Would you drive this woman home? She cannot be alone and we've to get out and handle an angina attack out Foxford way.

Trapped. Our Woman would, of course she would. God bless you Mrs, the ambulance man said putting his hand to the small of her back. You're very good. You're very good.

—I'm not a Christian, she told him.

Red lived in a Ballina housing estate with a faux French misspelled name. Very difficult to find. Our Woman cannot
believe the cruelty: trapped in a car with a woman who has crumbled her, delivered this crushing news. Our Woman took advantage of the chance to quiz her. Where did she work? An old folks home, with a funny name, mostly nuns. Was she married? No, she could never find anyone willing to marry her. How did she meet Himself? She'd rather not say.

Things were silent.

Will she come
in for
tea? Red asked.

Our Woman will not. Audacious, she thought, beyond audacious. Over the hills and far away nerve damage. As bold as life on Mars. As Red the Twit left, Our Woman hailed her back. How am I to believe what you've told me?

Listen take it easy on yerself, just forgive him.

—But if I am to forgive him, how will I know he did it?

There are items of mine in your house. He took one thing each time we met.

Red the Twit's eyes said underwear. The international language.

On the drive home from Ballina, with few street lamps to facilitate her, Our Woman considered crashing the car into a wall. There was a lovely black spot of a bridge, sharp and marked with the white crucifixes and moulded flowers of the other thirty taken non-deliberately in this spot. To be found mangled in a car, head to the wall or dashboard, might be easier than excavating the mind of the man who waited beyond at her kitchen table.

It was another way for the girls in her gang and their husbands. Our Woman observed their lives tied up and in with their husbands in small, significant ways that hers lacked during those days of her marriage. A husband might look out for his wife or display inquiry about his wife or the one that touched her most was how they could offer to relieve a burden.
They might lift a box for you. That would be useful. She was sure she had witnessed this, but couldn't cite a clear example, with a name and set of knees attached. It must be enough that it happens.

Today with Himself gone out to the fields, she wipes the inside of a cup with a tea towel, the insulting slur of a tannin streak refusing to budge at the behest of her knuckles, while she tries again to retrieve such moments. Mostly she sees couples bickering in the upstairs cafe or between the clothing rails of Dunnes Stores. The groaning guts of those men spilling over the belts of their trousers, while handles of paper bags shackle them at the wrists. The most tenderness she can find is in teenagers, a young woman with her hand vulgarly slipped into the back pocket of a young fella. There's aggression even in the way they kiss each other so flagrantly, like they're trying to suck the other's gums out, like an old horse chasing a lost scrap of ginger nut biscuit down the palm of your hand and up your sleeve.

So she cannot name them, but she's seen these exchanges, she's certain. That such things take place will have to do.

And behold, here he is now, Himself, my husband, in from the field to the kitchen, pulls his chair to the table for our evening sequence. I commence my bit, quick lay of the plate afore him, and back to hover and hope. There are a series of tiny motions I await, biteen actions that if totaled indicate he's here. Daily I must ascertain this. That steam might rise from the food, register its heat, and thus celebrate my labour in making it. That he'll pull his cup toward him, a gesture of inclusion. Best, when he engages all things on the table. If he'll lift the salt, the pepper, swoosh it over the food, stamp it down and immediately up with his fork, before the dip of the chin to let the scooping begin. Oh I can watch this sequence, day
beyond day, for it's only in these sole actions I know he's here with me. And I have learnt what prevails when these actions are interrupted, I've met what this leads to, that day in the bar of that Bed and Breakfast, when your one, Red the Twit, approached me. All this examination, all this watching, unsettles him.

—Sit down. What's wrong with you standing there?

But I am waiting, hoping for a reach, not a ride like the young
ones – talking
between bites of a burger at Supermacs, say. My objective is ever to avoid sitting, or passing things into his palm. Instead I must hold back to register a reach, which I'll see because the hairs on his arm become momentarily visible beneath the sleeve of his worn cardigan. Only then can I, will I, could I, would I, sit.

That day though there's no stretch: eek it a second, wait now, mebbe, but no, he's not going for the cup. He looks at me, waiting for a response. He indicates the chair opposite him. His hand willing me to sit, but that's the very hand that must circulate around the table moving objects like a game of domestic draughts. And if I sit, those objects will be passed and passing robs me of the sequence.

—I've already had mine.

The truth is, I'm filling up on the reliable aspects of my daily life that my husband, no matter what else he does, will come home to me from the fields for his dinner, he expects to find me here, and I rely on this expectation and these days I study it. I study it because I know there were days I missed it and I have to mull over those days. I am learning how to pay attention.

Offensive: the offensive is to have him move the objects around the table the way I like them moved. An undertaking is what I want.